


all that was me is gone

by Nautica_Dawn, sarsaparillia



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 21:17:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 99,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4537722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautica_Dawn/pseuds/Nautica_Dawn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarsaparillia/pseuds/sarsaparillia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Lady Elissa Cousland marries King Cailan Theirin, and history as we know it is naught but dust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue: the past is just a bridge we burned down behind us (when we left this town)

**Author's Note:**

> notes: aight so this says this is gen and like tbh it mostly is but also it is mostly about ladies, so.  
> notes2: the queen elissa/six wardens!AU that no one asked for or wanted except for alma and wren. :)

They arrive in a cloud of dust.

Arlan goes tense all over—he is only a Gate Guard, he never signed up to actually protect anything—and tightens his grip around the grainy wood of his halberd. No one important comes through these Gates, never, but the sun shines down hot and murky yellow, and the dust cloud comes nearer. There are dark shapes moving within, four on horseback and one low to the ground as might be a dog. The clop of hooves against stone is echoey-loud in his ears, and he shoots a nervous glance at Keevler, who just grimaces. Fat lot of good that does.

“Easy now, Whit,” Arlan tells himself under his breath. He takes a breath in to steady himself. And then, louder and more confident than he feels, he calls, “Halt! Who goes there?!”

Out of the dust resolves two men and two women, a mabari hound panting droopily at their feet. The men both wear armor, heavy and well-smithed, though the elder man wears finely-crafted steel that glimmers in the sun where the younger has only iron splintmail. They both watch their surroundings with the air of trained soldiers, spines straight and eyes sharp. The women… Arlan blinks at them, gobsmacked stupid for a moment. The women are as different as night and day; one with a tangle of dark hair around her face so wild it obscures her eyes but not the downward slope of her shoulders, and the other—the other an elf, fair and golden-haired, sitting astride her mount like the Queen of Fereldan herself. She looks up and catches his gaze. Her eyes are brown. She does not smile.

Arlan gulps, suddenly stricken.

The man in the shining armor speaks. “I am Duncan, of the Grey Wardens. We are here to meet with the King.”

 

* * *

  


Elissa Cousland has had better days. Infinitely better days, in fact. Days with a night of solid sleep behind them and good meals and her family and well—that’s not a good thought right now. No, right now she’s dealing with a week on horseback with a numb ass and little sleep and even less food. She needs a bath. A warm bed would be nice. Food would be even better. She glances over at Gil and Dane. Both warrior and dog look like they have aged a century in the past few days.

Maker, what a sight they must be. The three of them bloody, dusty messes with the Warden Duncan in the lead and Iona radiant and mysteriously clean like she’s the bride-to-be.

The guard at the gate just stutters. Highever’s gates would have had them through and in the palace by now. Are all Denerim’s guards this ridiculous? It’s bad enough the city stinks. Even out here the stench is strong enough to cover up the scent of old blood and sweat. If only a dragon would burn it all. Preferably in the next few minutes.

“I have with me Arlessa Elissa Cousland of Highever.” Well, there goes that plan. “I am fairly certain King Cailan would like his bride to be at their wedding.”

Elissa sighs and stares down the guard. “Let us through or my dog eats you. It’s been days since he’s had a proper meal.”

Iona tries for a smile, but stops when she realizes it falls flat. It is ungodly hot, and there is sweat trickling down the back of her neck. When they reach the city proper she’ll cover her hair with a wimple soft and gauzy and opaque enough to cover her ears. If they’re lucky, it will be enough to allow her to pass for human. If they’re _really_ lucky, it will be enough to pass her off as Lady Cousland, come to marry the king.

Of course, Iona isn’t hopeful about it, and she casts a melancholy glance at her Lady out of the corner of her eye. No one had expected—but the past is the past, and there is nothing anyone can do it change. Regardless, it aches like an open wound.

“Denerim,” and the word slips past her lips on a sigh. It is the city of her youth, and this close she can taste the muck and the mire of the alienage on the breeze. She’d escaped it, and now, five years older and many more years wiser, she’s back again. Highever sticks in her throat, its cold clean air, and she does not think of her daughter behind those rickety stone walls at all.

The Gates loom above them. Oak, thick, barred with cast iron. It’s like a prison, and in the safety of their shadows, Iona reaches into her pack to find a cover for her hair. The wimple is flimsy silk, something her Lady would never wear, and for a cracked second, she is hit with a bizarre urge to giggle. The sound bubbles behind her lips, and she bites down hard to ward away the threatening hysteria.

“Lady Elissa?” the Grey Warden says. He’s got a very stern face, thick dark eyebrows over thick dark eyes, and he’s looking right at her. This charade is going to be her death.

“I’m fine,” Iona says. Her voice is weird, too high-pitched. She forces it down, tries for the sweet modulated tone she knows most court ladies practise. “I’m—fine. Let’s just go.”

“The Palace isn’t far,” he says, and it’s nearly kind.

 _We’re almost there,_ he doesn’t say. _We’ve almost made it._

How in the world this charade is supposed to get them into the palace he doesn’t know. Why not just admit Lissy is the one in light armor and covered in Maker knows what? At the feet of his horse, Dane looks downright miserable. Poor hound would probably prefer to be with his mistress. Gil himself would like to be on her other side. She should be in the middle, not Iona.

He remembers, though, the way the blades on her back glittered red in the firelight. He knew she could fight. Trained her himself, alongside Fergus and Teryna Eleanor. It’s just that seeing her kill actual living humans with such cold efficiency is very different than supervising her cutting through straw-filled models.

It was beautiful, in a way, and graceful in a way slaughter should never be. He doesn’t think that sight will ever leave him.

“Warden, is this city always like this?” Lissy says, scowling. Of course she is. Looking around this Denerim is the kind of place she would hate. It’s crammed and filthy, the opposite of the wide open streets of Highever and the crisp clean air.

This is like being in Nan’s oven. He can see the sweat dripping into Lissy’s boots from here. “Is it always this _hot_?”

“Only in the summer, Ser Gilmore.” The Warden says, never looking back at them. He’s a strange man, this Duncan. A capable warrior for sure. Or, rather, a rogue on a level he prays Lissy never reaches. “And Iona, no. Sometimes Denerim has singing geese in the streets.”

Iona near stumbles.

 _Geese? What about geese? Since when do geese sing? Geese_ honk, _a bleating awful sound, geese do not sing—_

And then, oh, she realizes, he’s speaking to Lady Elissa. Singing geese. The giggles threaten a second time, because what in the Maker’s name kind of city is this? What kind of city smells of wet garbage and cooking fecal matter? What kind of city, where the people live packed in like sardines and Iona can feel curious eyes on the back on her neck? Don’t these people understand privacy? Don’t they have shame?

Of course they don’t. Iona grew up here. She remembers that.

The market seethes with life around the corner from here, though Duncan leads them away from it. Just beyond the market is the alienage, and just beyond that in a crooked little house is her crooked little girl with her crooked little smile, and Iona is so close she almost can’t stand it. Tearing off towards her daughter will only bring trouble, but…

The King’s Road hums around them. The shantytowns give way to the noble houses, cream walls and red-tiled roofs and wooden trellises hung with flowers, their cheerful faces glowing brightly against green foliage. The lawns widen, smooth out, and the trees get older and shadier in a way they simply never manage to in the rest of the city. Here the smell of too many people packed in too close fades a little, and the scummy sludge on the river feeding into the bay looks a little less terrible. Even the streets are cleaner.

Their party, dirty and sweaty as they are, stands out starkly. They very much do not belong here, and anyone looking at them could tell. The feeling of being watched buzzes against her skin, insistent as a fly.

She keeps her head down.

 _You are Lady Elissa Cousland_ , she reminds herself, and forces herself to straighten up. W _ould Lady Elissa behave like this? You look like a terrified child!_

She looks up, and her breath catches in her throat. The Palace District rises above them, all high arches and dizzying spiral towers, wrought iron smelt deep into the rock. She’d forgotten this, though she doesn’t know how. King Calenhad’s palace is as foreboding as ever.

“Ser Gilmore,” she says, voice tight, “please inform the guards of our arrival.”

The girl is actually fairly impressive. Elissa had doubted, when Duncan suggested putting Iona forward as the Arlessa come to marry the king. Shame it won’t work in the long run. That wimple will have to come off, revealing pale hair and slender sharp ears. Surely even here in this cesspool of a city they know Couslands are always dark haired.

  
Maker’s breath what would Highever say if it could see her now?

Elissa knows this charade ends when they enter the palace. She will have to step forward and let Cailan know what a wildling he’s marrying. Oh, maybe that will work. If he sees her like this and refuses to accept her, then maybe Duncan will recruit her and Gil and they will get out of this horrible place and back to the wilderness where the air is clean and clear of whatever that awful scent is. Wet dog? Old blood? No, that’s her. The city is worse.

 _This is for Rendon Howe. This is all for that. He will be strung up by his entrails and burned when I am queen_ , she repeats over and over again. It’s a shame, really, that her best chance for vengeance will only be because of this blasted marriage. But now Fergus is off to gather men for the army that will never be and she is all that’s left. If there is any mercy in this world, her brother will return to Highever to reclaim it once the usurper is dead .

She can kill Howe without the crown. It will just be easier to declare him a traitor to the crown.

“Make way for Lady Cousland!” The guards shout as they ride in through the palace gates. What a sight Iona is in her violet gown, side saddle astride a white horse. Her form is impeccable.

And then that _one_ guard, louder than all the rest, yells out: “Inform the King of the Arlessa’s arrival!”

—

It’s silly.

Cailan _knows_ it’s silly. Of _course_ it’s silly, they’re not due in Denerim for another week at least. It’s four days hard ride from Highever to his capital, but there’s been no word for a day and a half now, and. Well. He _knows_ it’s silly.

That doesn’t help the gut-churning anxiety that’s been roiling in his stomach for the past month. Because the thing is, he loves Anora—he loves her smile, the bright gleam of intelligence in her eyes, that funny little thing she does with her fingers when she’s nervous—but Eamon hasn’t let it alone, and though Cailan is loathe to admit it, his uncle is right.

There’s a Blight coming.

And Cailan has no heir.

It’s not an ideal situation, is the point, but the image of Anora’s sky-blue gaze emptying of emotion as she drew away from him when he told her about Eamon’s plan lingers still. She’s a whisper in the corner of his mind, and he closes his eyes for a little longer than a standard blink to shake her away. There’s no _helping_ it, it won’t be for long, she’ll be able to come back soon and things will go back to the way they’re supposed to be.

He’s fooling himself, and he knows that, but it’s a bitter medicine and pretending makes it a little easier to swallow.

An urgent _rap rap rap_ of mailed knuckles against the door startles Cailan from his thoughts. He blinks owlishly for a moment. “Come in?”

An out-of-breath guard comes tumbling in, helmet askew, cheeks red with exertion. “My lord!” he says, and promptly falls over. Cailan hurries over to help him up, but the guard isn’t having it. He holds a hand up as he tries to catch his breath, and then he’s speaking again but his voice is croak, barely a voice at all. “My lord, please listen!”

“Er, yes?” Cailan says.

“My lord,” the guard says for the third time, “Lady Elissa is here! I was told to warn you, they’re coming up the way!”

Lady Elissa is to be Cailan’s new Queen.

Lady Elissa is supposed to be in Highever until next week.

Lady Elissa is, apparently, in the castle.

Oh, _Maker_.

Cailan opens his mouth to speak, and then several things happen all at once. There are servants pouring into his rooms, arms full of linens and towels and clean clothes, and someone is tugging on his shirt and everything is a mess and the guard is staring at him with wide eyes like dinner plates. There’s sunlight pouring in through the window, catching on dust motes dancing frenzied through the air with the sudden movement, gold like Anora’s hair—

But no, now is not that time to think of Anora.

“What shall I tell them?” the guard asks over the cacophony of noise that Cailan’s chambers have become.

“I’ll, er, be right down?” Cailan says, and winces when a maid yanks at his hair. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and his arms windmill when he realizes he looks a fright. He can’t meet her like this, what if she thinks he’s a hooligan? “Tell them I’m sorry!”

The guard nods, backing away slowly. He frowns, trying to remember the guard’s name to thank him because his mother raised him right, but by the time he’s found it, the guard is gone, and Cailan is left to the mercy of his chamberlain.

 

This is not how any of this was supposed to go. His plan had been simple: go to Highever and convince Teryn Bryce to allow his daughter to join the Wardens. Except he’d arrived only to find Arl Eamon leaving and his best chance at raising the greatest Warden to ever grace this country went away like mountain mists dissipating in the harsh morning light.

Elissa is too rare and wonderful to put in a cage like this. He needs her against the Blight. Fereldan needs her against the Blight. She’ll make a fine queen, no question, but putting her on the throne solely because Anora has yet to produce a child in the face of the Blight that the new queen should be fighting is less than desirable. He saw what she did to Howe’s men. She was little more than a flurry of knives and determination; he hasn’t seen raw potential like that in _years_.

Duncan stays at the front of the group as the guards lead them through the palace. To his left, he catches sight of Elissa looking around surreptitiously and says, “My Lady, I do not think you will find escape here. This palace was meant to be the most easily defended place in the entire city.”

“Even Highever has an escape route.” She says it so quietly he just barely catches it over the din of the people around them. “Or are the Theirin so confident they will not consider fleeing a battle they cannot win?”

“I am certain the palace will be safer with you and Ser Gilmore here.” There’s a whine somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. Oh right, the hound. “A loyal Mabari also makes a place safer for his masters.” The look the dog gives him leaves him with the distinct impression that that if this palace were to ever fall, Cailan and anyone not named Elissa Cousland or loyal to her would be doomed.

“Pardon me, Warden.” Iona says softly, moving closer by just a hair. “Shouldn’t we reveal the truth now?”

There’s a snort from Ser Gilmore. “And let any of Howe’s men hanging around here realize their lord’s plan has failed?”

“Howe wouldn’t have done this just for himself. Someone was pulling the strings.” Lady Elissa is a smart one indeed. It’s only natural that in the days since Highever’s fall, she’s shown herself to be even more perfectly suited to the Wardens than he’d initially thought.

And yet here he is, handing her and Gilmore both over to Cailan.

The doors open in a flourish, revealing the spotless study the young king. They are left alone, of all things. His hands itch to reach for his weapons. At his sides, both the queen-to-be and her knight are in much the same situation. “Check the doors. Hound, keep an ear to the ground. If anyone approaches, please give us a warning.”

The hound just stares at him, soulful brown eyes blank until his mistress says, “Dane, do what he says.”

“It seems they have actually left us alone.” Iona says, the wimple slipping back to reveal a bit more of her hair. “Is that unusual?”

“Very,” Elissa answers. “My father and every other lord I know would never leave guests alone like this. Especially guests who have arrived a week early and in the conditions we are in.”

Gilmore sighs. “Might as well take advantage of it. Warden, do you still think Teryn Loghain would be behind Howe’s attack?”

“If Lady Elissa is correct that Arl Howe would not do such a thing on his own, then yes.” He thinks back to the meetings with the Mac Tirs. They always seemed like such practical people. “Beyond Anora, the Arlessa of Highever is the only suitable bride in Fereldan. Remove Elissa, and Anora stays on the throne.”

“Until Cailan finds a new girl somewhere else.” The queen-to-be is looking over the books, fingers brushing across their spines. Such a shame Highever burned. The library there was one of the best in the country. Elissa turns to face them, finishing, “My brother married an Antivan noblewoman and Arl Eamon is married to an Orlesian. Nothing says Cailan’s bride has to be from Fereldan.”

“A valid point.” Just one that unfortunately does not change the fact that using the Writ of Conscription on the king’s betrothed is very bad form. “Iona, it would be best to not tell the truth to anyone but Cailan. I know this is an awkward situation for you, but please remain calm.”

Lady Elissa actually manages to smile and the effect is obvious on the maid. “Don’t worry. We’ll protect you from the singing geese.”

Cailan looks like a fool.

That is all there is to it.

He looks like a fool, and the Teryn of Highever’s daughter is in his study with three guards all covered in mud. She’s a slight little thing, very pale—too pale, perhaps, the roots of blonde hair peeking out from beneath her wimple and he’d heard that the Couslands of Highever were all dark-haired—but there is a sharp little tilt to her jaw that makes him think of Anora at her most stubborn. His heart squeezes. This is probably not going to work out.

“My lady,” he says as he crosses the floor, because his mother didn’t raise him in a barn, and bends down to brush his lips across her knuckles. “I trust your journey was…” and here, Cailan pauses to shoot looks at her guard, all covered in road guck and other unmentionables and, Maker, was that— “Duncan?”

“Greetings, your Majesty,” says the Warden-Commander of the Grey in Fereldan, sounding utterly resigned. Duncan is as dustily bedraggled as the other two guards, but in his face is the unshakeable calm that Cailan has come to associate with the Wardens. “I’ve brought your fiancée.”

There’s a moment of profound relief, and then a moment of profound confusion, and because this is the King’s life now, he rolls with it. Cailan grins down at the wide-eyed girl whose hand he’s still got in his grip. “Hello, Lady Elissa. I’m Cailan. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Your Majesty,” Duncan says patiently, “Lady Elissa is over here.”

And Cailan blinks, and looks toward where Duncan’s gesturing at one of the other guards. His breath leaves him.

Oh, _Maker_.

She’s tall and fury-eyed and lovely in a fiery way that churns through his stomach, an emotion that he can’t name. There’s blood smeared across her cheek underneath the spattering of dirt, her hair is nothing but a tangle of wild off-black curls, and the swords slung over her back have the look of well-used weapons. Her cheekbones are too sharp for classic beauty, the dark purple smudges beneath her eyes speak of too many nights gone without sleep, there’s an ugly bruise blossoming down her neck; she’s nothing like Anora at all. There should be nothing about her that called to him, but she’s standing there with her center of gravity held low and her muscles all tensed to move. There’s a sharp danger in the line of her mouth that might be grief. She is the most striking person he’s ever seen in his life.

The attraction hits him like a physical blow.

Cailan has to look away from her to re-gather his wits. He takes a slow breath, closes his eyes for a little longer than standard blink, and then refocuses on the woman in front of him. He asks, a little stricken, “Then, er, who is this?”

“I am Iona, if it pleases your Majesty. I am her Ladyship’s maid,” says the woman with a pained smile, and slides the wimple off her hair. Blonde hair and pointed ears; she’s an elf, and a pretty one, but… Cailan looks back at the seething Queen-to-be, and swallows.

This is just _not_ his day.

There is clearly no Maker in the world and all that is here is the trickster of the elves because _this_ cannot be her husband-to-be. No, absolutely not. This fool who cannot tell the sharp features of an elf woman from that of Cousland could never rule Fereldan. Father would never have consented to this because Mother would would have refused on every level marrying her only daughter to anything less than perfection.

Only Mother and Father are no longer around.

And Cailan is her best chance at vengeance.

Elissa takes a deep breath and bows stiffly. “Your Majesty. I am Elissa Cousland of Highever. It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

He blinks.

Behind him, Duncan sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose. Elissa can almost hear his thoughts. _This is a disaster_ , they say, _this marriage is a mistake._ To his side, Gil is biting his tongue. Perhaps in embarrassment but she knows that glint in his eye. She wants to smile, but there’s that...man-shaped thing, bouncing in front of her to take her grubby hand and actually press a feather-light kiss across the knuckles.

“You realize that’s covered in the blood of traitors, don’t you?” She says nonplussed, staring down at him with one eyebrow raised. “And possibly the blood of a few bandits and highwaymen. Not to mention the mud. The North Road this time of year is horribly muddy.”

To his credit, he covers any disgust better than any bann’s son. “I am sure your story is quite thrilling, My Lady. Perhaps you and your companions would join me for dinner tonight and tell me about your travels.”

“That includes Iona and Dane.” Her eyes narrow. “And I rather think you’ll want to hear this now.”

“She is right, Your Majesty.” Duncan says. “Highever has fallen.”

The tension sets in her shoulders like steel set in ice. It’s hard to breathe, the feeling of loss and anger clawing at her chest and squeezing everything within her ribs. Give her darkspawn, Howe, something to fight to kill because she can’t do this. Tears burn at her eyes and she will _not cry in front of him_. She’s clenching her jaw harder than can be good for her teeth and Cailan is just a blurry golden shape in front of her and then there’s nothing but the feel of warm fur beneath her other hand.

It takes a moment for the sound of rushing blood to fade away to realize Dane has sidled up beside her. Somewhere in the underwater distance, though not five feet away from her, she can faintly hear Duncan explaining Howe’s treachery and their escape from a burning Highever.

It’s three simple words and just like that it finally sinks in that her world is over. There is no more Mother and Father. No more Oren and Oriana. No more teasing Nan or rats in the larder. There is no more running around the castle and town with Gil and Dane. No more annoying the Revered Mother. No more anything.

Highever has fallen.

She takes a sharp breath in and her hand tightens in Dane’s short fur.

Highever has fallen.

And she is still standing.

“Highever? Fallen?” Cailan asks.

No one says a word, but Duncan inclines his head a fraction of an inch.

Ice floods Cailan’s veins. Lady Elissa is staring at the ground with her fists clenched, though she isn’t crying, as far as he can tell. Maybe there’s a diamond sparkling in the pit of her eye. It could be anything.

But that’s not the point, is it. Highever, fallen.

“Perhaps we should sit down,” Cailan says, very quietly, very gently. “I’ll call for some tea. Unless you’d prefer to rest first, Lady Elissa?”

“I want Rendon Howe’s head on a pike. Preferably last week.”

Cailan has a bizarre desire to find a blanket to wrap around her shoulders. She seems like she needs it or something like it for comfort or maybe something to cling to, and blankets and hot milk had always been the way Anora had cheered him up when things got to be too much. That doesn’t seem like it would work, here, though, because there’s a tremble to Elissa’s limbs that isn’t quite natural.

Rendon Howe is admittedly one of Cailan’s least favourite people, but he hadn’t done anything recently to inspire such vitriol. Or had he? Lady Elissa is pulled taut as a bowstring. Idle death threats don’t seem like her style.

“...Care to elaborate?” he asks, instead of saying something truly horrible like _that’s fair, he’s a sleazeball_. Diplomacy doesn’t work like that, Anora was always trying to remind him.

"The part where he betrayed us or the part where his men slaughtered my family and burned our castle?" she says, and it doesn’t sound like a question.

“...Well, that’s bleak,” Cailan says.

(Which, yes, he knows it awful. There is a _reason_ Anora did the talking-to-important-people bits; she was good at it in a way that Cailan never has been. He’s good at people, not politics. No matter what anyone says, they’re two very different things.)

“It’s treason,” Elissa says, shoulders stiff. Her back’s gone up. Cailan wants to touch her shoulders and pull her apart, smooth down those ruffled feathers until she turns into someone with fewer sharp edges. The line of her jaw looks like it could cut glass.

He lets this hang for a long moment, chews the words over. Treason, yes, and also awful. Bryce Cousland has been nothing but spectacular to the people under his care, from what Anora said, and that’s the most Cailan can ask for. That Duncan has said nothing to the contrary tells him that she’s not lying, that this is something that very much did happen.

“Are you going to be alright?” Cailan asks.

She looks at him with dead eyes. Something inside of her that was screaming before has gone very quiet instead, he can just tell. He knows that look. He’s seen it on his own face often enough, hasn’t he.

"Food, sleep, a bath, and a chance to dance on his grave and I will be golden."

Cailan gulps, nods fast. “I’ll, er, get you a room set up. Your guard—”

"Will be replacing Teryn Loghain as Commander of the Guard."

"The entire guard, or your personal guard?" startles out of him, because he’d been about to ask whether she wanted him kept close or not. The man’s gaze has skipped around the room three times, and so far, Cailan hasn’t seen him relax for a second.

"For now, personal," Elissa says, voice tight.

That gets him, because of course it does. Cailan can’t help the wry little grin that flickers across his face. “I’m going to enjoy watching you tell him that.”

"I'm replacing his daughter as queen. It should go without saying that he will not be in charge of my safety," she says, tilting her chin up to stare him imperiously in the face.

 _Don’t laugh, Cailan,_ he tells himself, which doesn’t help because he ends up laughing a little helplessly anyway. She’s a spitfire, isn’t she, his mother had said Lady Eleanor was precisely the same. She’s going to have the court all up in arms, not to mention Loghain; he won’t appreciate his removal from head of the guard, but Elissa has a point: there’s no telling what’ll happen, not now, not with the Blight. Not when she’s so clearly grieving everything she’s ever known.

“You’re right,” Cailan tells her, and tries for another smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think of it like that.”

She doesn’t even deign to verbally acknowledge that, only narrows her eyes into a soul-searing glare.

Maker, she’s going to be the death of him.

He’s oddly excited about it.

“Er, is there anything other than that I need to know?” Cailan asks, shifting uneasily, trying not to burst into helpless shaking laughter that’s sticking at the back of his throat. “Anyone else dead?”

“Beyond my patience,” she says, “no.”

And that, well, that’s by far the most graceful dismissal Cailan’s ever heard in his life. For a second he flounders, unsure of where to go from here: she clearly needs some time and space to grieve, and Rendon Howe needs to be punished. He can’t have his nobles running about and killing each other, especially when one of those nobles is the Teryn of Highever and his own future father-in-law _and_ a decent human being, to boot. It’s things like this that incite rebellions, and Cailan is having none of it. His father, Maker rest his soul, had spent too much of his life fighting for a hard-won peace for Cailan to squander it away so easily.

Elissa wants Howe’s head on a pike: she would have it. There would be a trial, but she would have it all the same, even if Cailan has to put it there himself.

But first, she needs to rest.

“I’ll have someone get your things,” Cailan says. “Can I walk you to your room?”

“Just give me directions,” she says. “I don’t think my dog likes you.”

On cue, Dane growls lowly. Gil sighs. Of course this is how this went. As if it could have gone any other way. Lissy is the fires of vengeance made human. Always has been and always will be. She’s too smart and too vicious for this world. He can see the tension building in her as she sizes up the king, ready to reach for her weapons at any moment. King Cailan is either an utter fool or incredibly brazen. Gil isn’t sure which. Nor is he entirely certain which, if either, of those things is better than the other.

He can only gape, then, when the king promptly sits himself down on the floor and in all seriousness says, “Could I say hello to him?”

“He’s a warhound, not a pet.” Lissy is clenching her teeth again. Oh dear. Nan is always-- _was_ always getting onto her about that. Except now Nan’s gone and there’s no one to remind Lissy that she shouldn’t do that.

Andraste’s blood. Nan is gone. That doesn’t seem right. How many times did they joke about Nan’s ghost haunting that place even long after Highever had crumbled beneath the weight of passing time? That night is already feeling as if it was someone else’s dream. That’s not a good sign, is it?  
“I know, that’s why I’m asking permission.”

Wait. _What?_ Did the King of Fereldan just… this is going to be a very long and tedious lifetime, if Cailan keeps doing and saying such foolish things around Lissy. Sure enough, Lissy looks ready to snap. Dane, to the hound’s credit, is not reacting. He’s always been good about that, though. Not reacting until his mistress does, that is.

(And to think, some viscount from the Free Marches thought that hound would make a good present for Fergus to curry favor in the interest of a marriage between the only Cousland son and his daughter. No, that dog--a puppy, really, at that time--took one look at Lissy and never strayed away from her.)

He glances over at Iona to see how the elf is reacting to all of this. She looks just as weary as he feels. Despite not looking nearly as messy as the rest of them, she has a darkness beneath her eyes like the violets of her name were smeared across her eyes like tears. Iona is actually very pretty. He’d thought so back at Highever, but she’d paled in comparison to Lissy then. Still does, but he can see why Cailan made the mistake he did.

No one is ever entirely sure what to do with Lissy.

“His name is Dane,” he hears quietly from across the room. He blinks once, twice, and sure enough, Dane himself is staring at his mistress dumbfounded.

He can’t see the king’s face, but he can certainly hear the barely contained excitement when Cailan asks, “After the werewolf legend?”

“No, for the other Dane,” Lissy says. “You know, the one who went to war against puppies?”

“You don’t have to be mean. I like stories.”

Iona catches his eye in a question that is clearly meant to be _how did anyone think this would work out?_ and he had no idea how to respond to that. How to explain in a single glance that Teryn Bryce wasn’t going to allow his only daughter to marry just anyone. Certainly not the son of a lesser bann and not even the firstborn. Prior to Cailan, actually, the contenders had been pared down to an Antivan prince and a prince from the Free Marches, though Teryna Eleanor had been pushing for that Dairren kid from the Bannorn.

There was even that Pentaghast boy, but no one likes to speak of _that_ disaster. The nightmares only recently ceased.

Lissy sighs. “Yes, for the werewolf legend. My room now? Please?”

Gil watches as the young king gracefully jumps up to his feet. “Right, sorry, of course. It’s the Queen’s Wing, it’s this way.”

“Just directions please,” Lissy says, holding up a slender, muck-covered hand. “If it’s not too far.”

Cailan pauses, half turned to lead them out of the study. “Up three floors, on the left. It’s a white door.”

“Perhaps you should lead the way,” Gil says, taking a step forward. Might as well end this before Lissy has to sacrifice any of her dignity and ask for help herself. Not that she’s probably keen on dealing with her husband-to-be anymore than she already has today.

...Maker, Lissy’s getting married. Actually getting married. To this hyperactive golden puppy of a human being at that. This must be some great cosmic joke. It has to be.

To his left, the Warden speaks up for the first time since explaining the fall of Highever. “Actually, Your Majesty, if I could have a word with you in private? I’m sure your chamberlain can lead Lady Elissa and her lady-in-waiting to her rooms.”

Deftly handled, though Gil is mildly alarmed to see the man in the corner of the room almost melt out of the shadows. The chamberlain is tiny and frail looking, so old his skin is almost translucent. Has he been here since Calenhad built this place? He certainly looks like he’s grown into the palace, almost, a bit of it come to life. Disturbing, really. Nan was on her way to being that. The chamberlain was a young chap. Though, come to think of it, old Aldous was really closer to this. So ingrained in the history no one notices the watcher unless the watcher wants himself known.

Creepy.

But then the chamberlain is bowing low to Lissy and leading them all out. Gil takes one last look back at their savior, catching sight of the remorseful stare Duncan has on Lissy’s back. He has the distinct feeling that by stepping out of this room at this moment, any and all chance at stopping this marriage will be lost forever. Perhaps there is still time to join the Wardens and get Lissy out of here.

Maybe that’s why Duncan was really in Highever at that point. It wasn’t for him, but for Lissy. That would explain quite a lot. Not that anyone will ever know what could have come from that.

Ser Gilmore turns away and follows after his lady, allowing the study door to close with a final echo of what could have been.

Cailan stares at the door long after Lady Elissa had disappeared from the room. There is something tugging at him to go after her, but of course she needs time to be alone to sort things through. Chamberlain will get her safely to her room; the old man was ancient when Cailan himself was a child, and he’s the most trustworthy person in palace. He knows more about Cailan than Cailan knows about Cailan. He knows more about _Anora_ than Cailan does. He probably knows more about the entire state of the kingdom than anyone else, and if there was a disloyal bone is his body, he could likely destroy them all. But there isn’t, and he won’t, so Cailan’s not too worried. Elissa will be fine, even if it’s only eventually.

And Cailan isn’t one to keep the Commander of the Grey waiting. He expels a heavy sigh from deep in his chest, spewing the tension of the day out into the quiet study air. The only sound is his breath and the crackle of the fire. He’d not been expecting any of this, after all, and a week’s mental preparation goes a long way in Cailan’s world.

But, ah, there’s nothing to be done about that.

“Duncan, what can I do for you?” Cailan says brightly, forcing the exhaustion away.

The Commander of the Grey stands still like a cliff in a storm, hands folded in front of him. He raises a dark eyebrow, and opens his mouth to speak. "You are certain you wish to go to Ostagar?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?" Cailan tilts his head without meaning to, and then winces when he realizes he’s done it. Loghain always says it makes him look like a dog, and that it’s not becoming for a King to behave like a hound. He schools himself straight with every lecture Anora’s father had ever given him.

There’s a very long moment of silence before Duncan speaks again. "May I speak freely?"

“Please,” Cailan says, gestures at the seat in front of his desk. The other man sinks into it, looking older than Cailan has ever seen him look. It’s something in the lines of his mouth, downturns where there had been none before. Perhaps it’s the knowledge that the darkspawn are leaving the Deep Roads, clawing their way through the rock to the surface. Perhaps it’s something else entirely. Cailan waits.

"Lady Elissa pointed something out while we were on the road. Rendon Howe is not intelligent enough to successfully conquer Highever as he did. That suggests someone else is pulling the strings, which means you could very well be facing a civil war in addition to the Blight," Duncan says, voice even. His face is perfectly blank. He gives nothing away.

The fire crackles.

"You wouldn't say this unless you suspect someone, Duncan," Cailan says, and it’s so soft and so empty that it doesn’t come out near as objecting as he’d wanted it to. "Who is it?"

"Did you not catch that Lady Elissa would like Ser Gilmore to eventually replace Teryn Loghain as Commander of the Guard for the entire palace?"

"Loghain was my father's closest advisor," Cailan says, frowning.

"And he is the father of the woman you just divorced," Duncan counters, demonstrating once again that the Grey Wardens are an indispensable resource. Of course, he doesn’t see the whole picture, but he wouldn’t would he? Duncan’s not been here from the start, though his sharp dark eyes had picked out Chamberlain the minute he’d set foot in the room. That isn’t something to be discounted, but Cailan… Cailan doesn’t know how to explain.

Cailan doesn’t know how to explain to this man that while Anora is his dearest friend, if not the love of his life, she was always just a touch too far away. He doesn’t know how to explain how the look on her face had been both melancholy and pain, but mostly relief. He doesn’t know how to explain that Chamberlain had helped her hide the miscarriage; he doesn’t know how to explain that she’s a better ruler than he’ll ever be. He doesn’t know how to say these things to Duncan, not when Cailan respects him so much that hearing disappointment in the older man’s voice makes all his guts liquify. He doesn’t know how to explain that the Blight is his chance to be part of one of the greatest stories ever told. History: it’s not the only story that changes depending on who happens to be telling it, but it certainly is the most important.

He doesn’t know how to tell him that Teryn Loghain is as much a father to him as Maric had ever been.

Because all those things are things that Cailan’s kept locked behind his throat for his whole life, and he’s not about to start vomiting them out _now_. Anora is the only one he’d ever really been able to _talk_ to, and she’s gone, off to Gwaren to wait for Court to cool. There’s an ache in his chest, suddenly, a bitter sharp _longing_ for the funny little smirk that would dance across her face whenever one of the courtiers said something entirely idiotic. She would find this whole situation entirely hilarious. Cailan is almost sick with wanting her.

“What should I do?” Cailan asks, and it’s not until after it’s out of his mouth that he doesn’t know who he’s asking.

"I believe it would be best if you stayed here. If a civil war is brewing, then Fereldan will need an experienced ruler on the throne. Elissa has potential, but this is not something she has ever done before. Loghain and I can handle Ostagar, and it will give me an opportunity to find out if he knew anything of Howe's plans," Duncan says, gently, like he’s not accusing Cailan’s former father-in-law of the highest form of treason.

"I can't. The troops know I'll be there. I can't disappoint them,” Cailan says, because it’s the truth. It’s about morale. He can’t let them down. He can’t let _himself_ down.

"Sir, with no child of your own, the throne could be contested in the event of your death. If you think the situation now with Highever fallen to Amaranthine is bad, it is nothing compared to the civil war that will erupt from a contested throne."

Cailan could only sit and shake his head. No, that’s wrong, he can’t just _hide_ while people are dying in his name. His grandmother would haunt him until the day he died.

"When are you planning on leaving then? Can you give me at least some time in the south alone with Loghain? Spend some time here getting to know your new bride."

"I was... planning on leaving as soon as the wedding was done?"

"I suspect you will return home to find no wife if you do that," Duncan says, voice flat. "Lady Elissa has just lost her entire world. If you want this to work, try giving her a sense of stability."

"I was just... going to... bring her with me...?" Cailan says, already wincing. He really hasn’t thought this through. Of course Elissa would protest his going to Ostagar so soon, it’s a death trap and she’s smart as a whip, she has to know. "I see how that could be a bad idea."

"It could be, yes. It would be unwise to leave Denerim with no ruler in times like these."

"Six months? A year? I have to help with the Blight. I can't just... stay out of it, that's wrong. I'm the king, I need to be out there. Elissa is, well. She's. I don't know." Cailan stops there to remember the way the firelight had slicked off her hair, turned her to a burnished statue of bronze. It wouldn’t be hard, to spend a year looking at her. It wouldn’t be hard to spend a _lifetime_ looking at her, in fact, but that’s not the point—the Blight is the real concern, the reason he’d left Anora in the first place. An heir. That wouldn’t take too much time, would it? Six months? Cailan cursed his own inadequate schooling in the matter. Children have never really been at the forefront of his mind, if only because he’d been so consumed with meeting his people after his father had disappeared. It hurts to think about.

"Six months should be plenty of time, though a year would be better. Unless the Archdemon makes an appearance, we only have to worry about the horde. And you have Rendon Howe to hunt. I believe your fiancée requested his head on a pike. Such an endeavor will take time," Duncan says, eyebrows raised high on his forehead.

"I get the sense she wants to put his head there himself,” Cailan says absently, thinking of the way her eyes had burned. She was the kind of woman that would set a Chantry on fire if she thought it would help her cause. This is a disaster, he is not supposed to be attracted to that specific brand of insanity. He rubs at his eyes. “But you're probably right. I'll think about it, at least."

"Thank you, Your Majesty. Do this well, and I might know someone at Ostagar that you would be very interested in meeting."

Well, that sounds like a bribe. Cailan squints, and takes the bait regardless. This is why he is not allowed to talk to nobles, he always gets everyone in trouble because he can’t keep his curiosity in his head where it belongs. “Who?”

"Win Elissa's favor and then we'll talk about it," Duncan tells him with the barest hint of smile.

He feels all of two years old, and has to force himself not to kick his feet like a child. His mother would be so disappointed. “That’s unfair.”

"You need an heir. Woo her."

Cailan can feel himself pouting. He’s seen twenty-five summers, and he is _pouting_. This is terrible. More than terrible, this is _undignified_. What kind of king _is_ he?

But what is he supposed to do? There was no wooing involved with Anora; there had been her sitting down on the edge of his bed and saying _so are we doing this, or not?_ Romance isn’t something Cailan has any experience with.

“But I don't know _how_ ,” Cailan says, and yes, he is well aware he is whining. He is almost painfully glad Chamberlain isn’t around to record this.

“Cailan, that's undignified. You are a twenty-five year old man, not a boy of twelve," Duncan says, and there it is, there’s the disappointment, Maker, he is never going to escape this hell.

Cailan groans, and drops his head to his desk.

This is _really not his day_.

 

 


	2. guillotine bonnie

“Even the water smells bad.” Elissa says, reaching out of the bath to tilt a little more of the rose oil into the water. “What is with this city and its stench?”

"It's not even high summer yet, milady, this isn't half as bad as it gets." Iona’s voice is only barely muffled by the door. It is cracked open just a little, enough so that she can see the elf’s arm occasionally as Iona works on sewing something.

Of course Denerim can only get worse. This forsaken city is where the worst of Ferelden seems to lurk. She’s been here for three days, so far. Mostly spent sleeping and healing, but still long enough to have heard some idle nobles speaking when they thought no one was around. It’s done nothing but make her ache for the honesty and sincerity of Highever. The regional banns were all on friendly terms, most knowing her family and vice versa by given name.

“I swear this place has no redeeming traits.” She sinks into the water, nose close to floating bit of fragrant oil. Three days and all she’s found is that the Queen’s Wing has not been changed one whit from when Anora was still in residence. This is to be her home now and she’s being left as an intruder.

Not to mention the other maids and whatnot. She’s already had to put more than she’s comfortable with on Iona’s shoulders. She does what she can in this foreign place to help. She is a Cousland, after all. Mother and Nan made sure she and Fergus could both take care of themselves if the need ever arose.

There’s something that sounds like a sigh beyond the bathroom door. “"Oh, it does. They're just hidden. Denerim is... well, perhaps I’m biased. I did grow up here."

“Could you tell me about them?” Elissa asks after a long moment. If this place is to be home now, might as well try to learn about it. Where better than with the lone native she actually likes?

“What would you like to know?” and there is humour in Iona’s voice as she says it.

Elissa breathes deeply, the smell of roses finally overwhelming the permanent stink of Denerim. “Tell me about your favorite places.”

Iona is quiet a long while. The inquiry can’t be that strange, can it? They’ve been here for three days and Elissa has seen nothing of the city beyond a small portion of the palace and whatever she might catch sight of through the windows. That short journey from the gates to the palace showed her nothing but a crowded, dirty city. Surely a place that produced someone like Iona must have some hidden havens. Highever certainly did. The small rose garden on the hill hidden behind the Chantry, for instance. Or the golden field that was always unattended for the two weeks preceding the harvest. Within the castle, even, there were quiet places filled with happiness where one might take a break from the bustle of life and just relax.

"There's a tree in the Alienage,” Iona starts quietly, voice growing stronger as she continues, “It's as big as a house. I used to love climbing it, but I got in so much trouble every time I did; the elder, he thought I was impertinent. No respect, he said. And there's the market, the Chantry's there. They say you can find anything, if you know where to look. I wouldn't doubt it, but I never had coin. The river, it runs through the whole city, right out into the bay. I love the docks, always have. All you can smell is salt and fishmeal, and the sea goes on forever. Even on ugly days, it's beautiful."

Elissa remembers the Waking Sea; loved it so dearly she wished for nothing more than fins and gills to live within its turbulent waters all the time. This will be the Amaranthine, different water and different salt and different fish. The fisherman who would always have pretty shells for her won’t be here.

And all her shells are in Highever, likely smashed to bits by fire and soldiers.

"And I know... I know it's not Highever, my lady, but Denerim is built on dirt and old bones. It's a different city, but no less lovely for it." Iona says at last, falling silent once more.

Elissa stretches out, popping her back as she tilts her head against the back of the bathtub. “Would you show it to me sometime? This city, I mean. I don’t think I’ll care much for the official tour.”

"Whatever your Ladyship would like. We could go today, if you aren't too tired."

Today? Elissa slumps back against the bathtub before moving to stand up, water and oil sliding of her body as she does so. A towel was left nearby, and she wraps it tightly around her before stepping out of the water. Today would be a good day to leave the palace. A day without that chamberlain lurking about, without nobles staring at her, a day to observe the city and not be observed herself.

"Go change into something less fine, then. I'll need clothes too." She says, glancing around the room to confirm a distinct lack of clothing. "And you can call me Elissa."

 “Yes, your Ladyship,” and she can almost _hear_ the cheeky grin that goes with that.

“And Iona,” she says. She can just see the edges of the violet skirt her lady-in-waiting is wearing. Standing already; the elf moves like a natural rogue. Perhaps training her to fight would not be remiss. “Thank you.”

"You don't need to thank me, my Lady. It was nothing."

The soft rustle of fabric against fabric is the only sound as Iona searches through her Lady’s clothes. No, there’s nothing here that’s even remotely workable. It’s too bad she’s not human, she thinks, not for the first time, because then the Lady could just wear her clothes and that would be more than enough to get on with. But, no, that won’t work, either. They’ll stick out, a human and an elf, especially in the Alienage, and the Alienage, Iona suspects, is where Lady Elissa wants to go. She wants to know what Iona loves about this place, but what she loves about this place isn’t tangible: sunlight through leaves, the old songs at funerals and weddings, the quiet murmur of children’s voices from the orphanage next door.

And Amethyne. Oh, Maker, _Amethyne_.

“My Lady, I’m going to go down to the kitchens. Someone will have clothes for you there. Is there anything in particular you’d like?” Iona asks, tries to keep her voice level and not burst into hysterics. Her daughter is still _out_ there, and she hasn’t had time to sneak away to go make sure she’s alright. Of course she’s alright, of course she is, she has to be. Her little girl is fine.

But perhaps she ought to tell her lady about her daughter.

Lady Elissa is, if nothing else, understanding of sacrifice.

“Something that will blend in and be easy to fight in,” Lady Elissa says promptly. There’s a pause. “And a good pair of leather boots.”

“Of course, my lady,” Iona murmurs. The clothes will be easy, but the boots… well, this is what being a noble’s maidservant is all about. The other servants around the palace know her already—they know that she’s Lady Elissa’s only maid. They ought to be able to procure a decent set of boots. Her fingers curl around the doorknob. For a minute, she’s struck by how odd her own skin looks; the light in Denerim is cool and watery, always filtering down through a patchy layer of clouds. Highever was different, brightly white in a way that no other city Iona’s been to can replicate, but Denerim is familiar. Something swells in her chest, _home_ , maybe, and then she’s off.

The run down to the kitchens is a maze, all twists and turns and rough-hewn stone and ducking beneath tapestries for a shortcut out into the main hall. Cailan’s palace has been built over centuries: every King since has added his own wings. It is a marvel of a thing, from an architectural point, dizzyingly high towers and great arcs of stone every which way. That it’s standing at all is impressive, really, given the way it lists to one side where the Queen’s Wing juts out into the air high above the city. Iona isn’t sure how she feels about that—for all it’s certainly a lovely view, it isn’t very defensible.And it’s not very aesthetically pleasing. Iona wrinkles her nose as she descends a set of stairs that look like they haven’t been cleaned since King Calenhad himself united Ferelden. She’s going to have to do something about this. As it stands, it’s a travesty.

Iona doesn’t know when she started thinking it terms of defense, but she thinks it was probably when Amethyne was born. There is nothing in the world so important to Iona as Amethyne, but she thinks that perhaps Lady Elissa will one day come close. There is something strangely endearing about her Lady, about her grief and her fire and her drive.

Iona can’t help the smile.

The kitchens are on the lowest floor of the palace, where the ovens burn all the time so the heat seeps upwards through the stone and into the other floors. It feels like a furnace inside. A bead of sweat coalesces in the hollow of Iona’s throat, and she swallows reflexively when the cooks eye her. They’re all fast efficiency, already working on supper through it’s not yet noon. This is not unusual. Iona doesn’t think the cooks ever really rest, but the kitchens are where the servants spend their days when not tending to their nobles. There will be help, here.

There’s a servant girl who looks like she’s running messages, blonde pigtails bouncing over the sharp points of her ears. She’s twelve, maybe thirteen, and for a moment when she turns, she looks so much like how Amethyne might in a few years that Iona’s heart clenches. She catches the girl by the wrist.

“I need a set of street clothes,” she tells the girl, with a soft little smile. “And Lady Elissa would like a good set of boots.”

“Lady Elissa?” the girl asks, colouring brightly. “The—the _queen_?”

“Yes,” Iona says, and tries not to laugh. Oh, she remembers being this age, when the world seems huge and breathless and everything is still so new. It feels so far away, now, soaked over with copper-tang red, but once upon a time Iona was a child who still believed in the Maker, and she hasn’t forgotten that. “Good leather, average size. Will you need coin?”

The girl shakes her head frantically. “The—the armory. They—they should be there, I think?”

“Well,” Iona says, lips parted almost laughingly over her teeth. The child is going to be a terror. It’ll be wonderful to watch. “I think I’ll go to the armory, those men will just be rude. Can you get the clothes?”

“For you?” the girl asks, and there’s something shrewd in her face. Iona knows that look. That’s the _you’re trying to pull one over on me, aren’t you_ look that every elven child has mastered by the time they can walk. Amethyne had been the same. Is the same. Oh, Maker.

“No, for her Majesty’s other servant,” and Iona is pleased to see that the girl understands from the way her eyes narrow. The entire palace knows that Lady Elissa only has one servant, and that Iona is, without fail, that sole servant. There are no others. There is no one else. The only other person in the Queen’s Wing who might need clothes is the Queen, and already she’s asked for boots. The girl isn’t stupid. She’ll understand. “Bring them to the Queen’s Wing, please. Ser Gilmore is standing outside. Tell him that Iona sent you, with seashells and love.”

(Seashells and love: code for _this one is safe_. No one is allowed to see Lady Elissa without it. It’s a sad state of affairs, that they need it, but Arl Howe will know, by now, that the Couslands aren’t all dead. Better safe than sorry.)

“Why should I?” demands the girl at last, eyes still narrow.

“Well,” Iona says, tilting her head, “if I’m down here, who’s going to answer the door?”

And with that, Iona sweeps out of the kitchens, and heads towards the armory. 

 

“Lissy, what in the Maker’s wide world do you need a ‘dagger that can be easily hidden’ for?” He should have known she would do something like this. It’s Lissy, after all. Girl never could stay confined for too long.

The white door cracks open just a little more, her dark eyes glittering in the dim light of the hall. “Gil, please? I know you have one in your boot.”

Why exactly is he hesitating? He knows what she’s up to; knew she was going to do this. It’s only natural that she wants to see the city she’s to spend the rest of her life in. It’s so strange and new, after all. What better way to discover it than with a native?

Ah, there it is.

Sighing, he lifts his right foot enough to draw the dagger. He tosses it up in the air, catching it by the blade and presenting it to his lady. “For you.”

“You’re just going to give it to me?”

“It’s what you want, isn’t it?” He says, looking down at her. So frail and so dangerous, especially with her delicate hand wrapped around the hilt of a dagger. Denerim won’t know what hit it until long after she’s got the nobles on their knees and their money helping the poor.

She’s frowning. Oh no. That’s not good. Why is she frowning. He wants to push her back into the room, following her in and sitting her down to find out what’s wrong. Only he can’t do that. He’s in charge of her security, which means he has to stay out here.

And he can’t be—well, they can’t be what they were. Not anymore.

“This doesn’t change anything, Gil.” She says, the hard edges of her expression softening slightly. “We’re both still here. So long as we stay together we’ll be fine.”

“I know,” he says and he knows he’s lying. Feels it deep down in his bones because this changes _everything_. Lissy will be queen, married and no longer the little wildling he’s always known. For a moment, the light hits her just right and she looks all of fifteen, hair a mess in the wind and salt off the Waking Sea. She’d been so happy that day, despite the clouds and rain. Just a day away from everything to explore the shore and look for shells. The wind had been so strong that with the waves crashing behind her she’d look like a witch of the wild, come to curse them all.

The longing hits then. It would be so easy. The Queen’s Wing is hidden away from the rest of the palace. No one is here to see if he just sweeps her up and kisses her one last time. This part has always scared him. He wants her and can’t have her but for some reason she’s always been there, willing and wanting him.

But. He can’t have her. Never could.

And a part of her must know this because she’s going to go explore the city with someone else. Lissy and Gil aren’t the terrors of Highever anymore. There is no mischief they can get into that won’t end badly for one or both of them. Surely she’s realized this by now.

“Liss, promise me you’ll be careful out there.” He says. His hand stops on its ascent to her face, though. That’s on the list of _things that can’t happen anymore_. No touching that isn’t directly related to her safety. No wanting. No kissing. No being them.

She rests her head against the door, a smile flickering across her face. “I always am. Will you be okay staying here with Dane?”

He blinks, looking around the door at the suddenly very attentive hound. “You’re leaving him?”

“An elf and a human will draw attention as it is,” she says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “An elf, a human, and a mabari will draw much more.”

Reason, of course. Dane looks so disappointed. Gil look back at his only queen. “No one will even know you’re gone.”

Ser Gilmore and Lady Elissa are standing very close to one another. Rather, Ser Gilmore is standing very close to Lady Elissa, and Lady Elissa doesn’t look to be pushing him away. They’re standing in the threshold to the Queen’s Wing, and they both look young and unhappy. Ser Gilmore, in particular, is staring at Lady Elissa like she’s just knifed him in the heart.

 _Ah,_ Iona thinks, _I thought as much_.

“My lady,” she calls down the hall. Best to interrupt them now, while they’re still clothed. “I found your boots. Ought we move inside? It’s a little more private.”

Lady Elissa doesn’t startle, though she does raise her head to blink a little owlishly. She shakes it off quickly enough, and nods sharply. Ser Gilmore is already moving away. “Yes, thank you, Iona.”

Iona only smiles, though she knows it doesn’t reach her eyes. Instead there’s sympathy there, maybe, and sadness, and understanding, because that’s all she feels. Sympathy and sadness and understanding, a cocktail swirl of soft blue-grey emotion that makes her think of Amethyne’s eyes. And if as she’s hurrying past Ser Gilmore, she brushes her hand along his elbow, no one has to know.

 _I’m sorry_ , she wants to tell him. _We’ve all lost so very much_.

But she doesn’t.

Instead she slips into Lady Elissa’s room, and closes the door behind her.

Elissa can tell Iona needs to say something. She’s got that same look Oriana would get when an Important Conversation needed to happen. Might as well take the plunge, then, since the elf is looking rather nervous now that they’re alone.

“Is everything alright?”

Iona takes a deep breath, standing up straight. "My lady, in Highever, I told you of my daughter, did I not?"

Elissa blinks. “Of course. She’s in the alienage here, isn’t she?”

"Yes,” Iona says. Except she’s hesitating. That’s never a good sign. Hesitating is what Father did before telling the whole family that King Cailan had just arranged for this blasted marriage. “But there's... something else."

“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Elissa finds a seat, sinking down into the chair. Maker, what is Iona trying to say? Her daughter is evil? Cailan’s bastard? Or maybe the child of another nobleman in the city. Surely no relation to the Couslands, but what of Darrien’s family?

"She's... strange, my lady. I'm not sure... I don't know how to rightly describe it." Iona says it like it couldn’t mean any number of things. Strange can be many things. Strange can be psychopathic or homicidal or dim or too smart or _anything_ , really.

“She’s what?” Probably not the kindest response, but Elissa really doesn’t see the problem here without anything more specific. Oren was a strange child, to be sure. So was she. Gil was an odd one too, come to think of it

"Magic. I think." Iona says very quickly, "And I wouldn't say anything, but I need to see her, and I can't bring you to see where I grew up without you meeting her. And you wanted to go, but I... if it's magic, it's not magic I've ever seen. She's just... strange. But she's my little girl. Do you see?"

Magic?

 _That’s_ what this is all about?

Elissa exhales a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding on to. “Oh, well. That’s not nearly as bad as you were making it sound.” 

Not nearly as bad? _Not nearly as bad_? What in Andraste’s name had Lady Elissa been imagining? But, no, this isn’t the time. Iona gulps down her hesitation and her fear.

"If she's magic, and someone finds out, they'll take her away," she says, very quietly. She doesn’t say that her brother went with the Templars when he was ten years old, and she hasn’t seen him since. She thinks of his sharply pointed nose, and how it sits on her daughter’s face. She thinks of the way his eyes would go vacant. She thinks of the way Amethyne’s go exactly the same. "My brother went to the Circle when I was a girl. I cannot lose her."

Iona blinks very hard at her shoes, preparing for the worst. If Lady Elissa decides to speak to the Chantry—well, Iona’s been prepared for that eventuality Amethyne’s whole life. Valendrian can get her out of the city, but she’ll be on the run, and she’s only ten; no little girl should have to deal with that. No little girl should be branded apostate, not so young. And magic runs in Iona’s mother’s family, always has as far back as anyone can remember. She got lucky. Lyrium would do nothing to her except cause an addiction, and she has no need of that. But Amethyne…

Amethyne is a different story entirely.

"They won't take her if no one knows," Lady Elissa says, and she sounds nothing so much as impatient. “Can we go?”

And that.

That wasn’t anything like Iona had been expecting. The pounding behind her eyes eases, and the knots in her stomach unclench. She shouldn’t be as surprised as she is; Lady Elissa isn’t the type to care about magehood anyway. There’s none of the Chantry-fueled, Maker-instilled hatred that Iona knows hides in many people, only an exasperation at being held up.

Iona has to cover her mouth to hold in the laughter.

“Well then, my lady,” she says, and proffers the bundle of cloth and leather. “Perhaps you should get dressed?” 

Elissa dresses quietly and quickly. Not so quickly as she did that night in Highever when there were soldiers rushing about, but that’s an unpleasant thought. Iona’s revelation does throw a slight kink into her plans for this city. Nothing she can’t handle. Right?

Maker, a _mage_.

She can do this. Hiding a mage should be easy. First thing first, how to convince Iona to let her bring the girl to the palace. A place this big and complex, especially with the Queen’s Wing as isolated as it is, should be a good place to hide a young mage from the Chantry.

The Revered Mother in Highever had hated the Templars when they came into the alienage for young elven mages; it almost always ended in unnecessary bloodshed. Surely Denerim cannot be that much different. The Chantry never seems to change it’s stripes, no matter how badly it may be needed.

“Where to first?” she says. Start this off normally and all should go well. It’s not like she’s suggesting they place lyrium bombs beneath the Chantry. Just hide a potentially magical little girl from the Templar Order.

Andraste’s knickers, they’re going to need tutors for the girl. Even if she isn’t magic, she’ll still need a proper education. Their formal story will be simple. Amethyne will come to the palace as a training lady-in-waiting, apprenticed to her mother. Elissa will simply  make it clear that she refuses to have an uneducated maid. After all, what good is having a servant you don’t get along with?

Iona laughs softly. "Let's go meet my family, m'lady. I'll even let you climb the tree."

Elissa spins around so quickly it leaves her almost dizzy. “Really? Do you think we can get all the way to the top before someone spots us?”

“I don’t know,” Iona says and her smirk is the most mischievous thing Elissa has seen since Oren decided to take up her old past time of driving Nan nutters. “Shall we find out?”

She’s going to like this elf, she can already tell. Iona survived Highever for a very good reason. If this works out as well as she thinks it will, getting Amethyne into the palace—oh, that will be a problem.

How do they bring the girl in? They’re sneaking out and sneaking back in will be difficult enough. Sneaking back in with a little girl in tow could be next to impossible.

New plan: go and come back, _then_ bring up the subject of bringing the girl to the palace.

But really, she is going to get the girl to the palace. Elissa has heard enough stories about the Denerim alienage to know asking Gil for his spare dagger and Iona to track down good boots was a good idea.

Speaking of the boots, they are very nice indeed. Inscribed leather from the look, and a high quality. If she can find full armor like this, she might just feel a little more comfortable in this city. That’s another thought for another time, though. Right now, there is a city to explore. 

Denerim is an easy city to get around, as long as you know where you’re going.

Luckily, Iona knows where she’s going.

The Palace District is a walled-off stone affair, but there are simple ways to get in and out as long as one isn’t adverse to getting a little wet. The Drakon river is always patrolled, here, but Lady Elissa passes well enough for a guard when she’s got her hair tucked away in a helmet, and Iona has played at being a noble lady far longer than she would like to admit. It’s not so much _sneaking_ as it is _pretending_ : they are and they aren’t, really, but it is what it is. A lady and her guard, a lady and her maid; people see what they want to see, always. Fools, the lot of them, but it makes for a good story.

Down and under along the walkways by the water is the easiest way to go to leave the Palace District, and it’s the way Iona will go to the Alienage in the mornings after she’s tended to her duties in the Queen’s Wing. Practise, she tells herself, that’s all this is, though it seems the Queen herself is along for the ride.

Lady Elissa wants to see Iona’s Denerim.

It’s not a lovely place, but the places that are lovely are hard to get to.

“How do you feel about climbing, my lady?”

"Did you ever see the cliffs near Highever?"

Well, that’s a rhetorical question. The cliffs at Highever are white and a sheer drop into the Waking Sea, covered over with craggy handholds and bird’s nests. Iona tilts her head, smiles a little, says “Of course.”

Lady Elissa smiles horribly, lips stretching over her teeth in a vicious, violent grin. “Did you know,” she says, “the only way to a very nice, secluded beach is by climbing up and down those cliffs?”

“Oh, my lady,” Iona laughs, really laughs. “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

“I was thinking much the same,” says Lady Elissa, and they both duck at the exact same time when one of Bann Loren’s men comes whistling along the fairway above them. Iona puts a finger to her lips. The sound of the river will cover their footsteps, but it won’t hide voices. They’ve a ways to go, yet, and getting caught this early would be a travesty. She doesn’t say that Cailan would likely be amused they thought to leave at all. He seems like that sort of man, for all that he’s the King of Ferelden.

(He’s a bit strange, though Iona hasn’t met many Kings, so she can’t be sure.)

It’s early enough that the furnace heat of noon hasn’t yet enveloped the city. They skip over a trickle of water trying to pass itself off as a stream, slide by a dilapidated inn, and then there they are, they’re out of the noble houses and into the back alleys where the people are packed in like sardines. Iona breathes a sigh of relief. She can smell fishmeal and fresh bread and the indefinable smell of human life, flesh in sovereigns. They haven’t quite hit the brothels yet, but she figures that’s probably best left for another day. The Pearl isn’t meant for polite conversation.

Not that the Alienage is much better.

But it’s home, and what is she to do?

“This way, my lady,” Iona says over her shoulder. There’s solid stone beneath her feet and smoke-scented air in her nose, and she feels more herself than she has in days. Denerim always brings out the worst in her. She loves it absurdly.

“Is it always this crowded?” Lady Elissa’s nose is wrinkled.

“You’ve no idea,” Iona tells her, and catches at her elbow. “Watch out for pickpockets.”

Pickpockets? She’d like to see one of the little blighters try. Elissa remembers well enough the time she and Gil and Fergus decided to see who could steal the most trinkets from visiting nobles one birthday of Mother’s. Knowing how to pick a pocket goes far in protecting oneself against the very same crime.

“Where to first?” She asks, looking around at the tightly packed buildings and the people moving about in spaces so little she wouldn’t leave Dane in one for too long. “You said there were beautiful places here.”

Iona shrugs. “Beauty is subjective, my lady,” she says. “Through that gate, we’ll be in the Alienage in a mo’.”

“Mo’?” Lissy asks before she can stop herself. What in all of Thedas does that mean? That’s not an accent she’s ever heard before, not even from the roughest transplants in Highever.

Iona flushes red from the tips of her ears down to the delicate collarbone peaking out from beneath the collar of her dress. “In a moment, I’m sorry. I always forget that other places grow up speaking like normal people.”

“Normal is subjective,” Elissa says.

“What _isn’t_ subjective, I ask you.” Iona says, sighing deeply.

So Alienage first or explore more of this— “Where are we presently?”

“Do you really want to know?” Iona says. The elf is smirking, the expression almost devilish. “We’re a little east of the Pearl, one of Denerim’s _finest_ establishments. We’re in the blue district, my lady. Home is north from here.”

“Blue district?” She asks, regretting it immediately when Iona’s smirk turns into the most angelic smile she’s ever seen. Something tells her that Highever may be lacking a comparable location, and that may not be a bad thing. Denerim is a very strange place, she decides.

“Well, if King Cailan doesn’t ever satisfy you, you can find whatever you want here.” Iona says, her smile perfectly serene. “And I do mean _whatever_ you want, the girls aren’t picky. They’re not even necessarily girls!”

Elissa trips on a loose stone, catching herself on Iona’s arm before she falls. No, Highever does have a place like this. “This is a lonely district, you mean?”

If Cailan can’t—Iona is something else, away from the trappings of court. Much freer and far bolder. Yes, they will get along just fine.

Really, though, why would Elissa come all this way for something she can find easily in the palace? Surely Gil won’t start refusing her now that this mess has occurred. Not that they’ve been together since Arl Eamon came to visit with the proposal. It’s just been one thing after another and it’s not like this changes anything, not really.

Or does it?

It does bring up the one unpleasant part of all this. In between getting Amethyne out of the Alienage and redoing the palace guard and probably the city guard and trying to settle into and fix this forsaken city, she’s going to have to take Cailan to her bed. That’s why this marriage is happening, after all. It has nothing to do with her desire to sit on the throne while Rendon Howe burns and everything to do with the fact that Cailan needs the heir Anora has been unable to provide.

An heir means spending the night with him.

Likely more than once.

She’s scowling now. _Such a terrible habit,_ Nan would always say, _how are you ever going to find a husband looking like that_? Nan was always saying things like that. Well, just look at her now, marrying a king she doesn’t want to and facing an immediate future she _really_ does not look forward to.

“Let’s head toward the Alienage for now,” she says. 

Lady Elissa’s expression twists up like she’s just bit into a lemon, sour and grumpy-sharp, eyes crunched down and lips pulled back and just the angriest little hint of teeth. It’s a distinctly unhappy expression, though perhaps unhappy puts it too lightly—it is unhappy, yes, but also furious. The fury hidden behind it is the worst part, really. It’s the most honest.

Iona touches her arm. “I’m sorry,” she says, and it seems like the right thing to say even though she doesn’t know what she’s apologizing for.

It’s kinder, somehow.

And so she tucks her hand into the crook of Lady Elissa’s elbow, and tugs her forwards. She doesn’t wait for Lady Elissa’s answering nod, even though it’ll be there somewhere. The best thing to do, right now, is to get the woman into something that’ll take her away from the darkness that’s brewing behind her eyes. That’s always been Iona’s answer to the real problems: concentrate on something else until whatever was bothering you disappears.

Ignoring things until they go away usually works, and this is no different.

Because the Alienage is just as she remembers it.

It’s a mess of a place, Denerim’s Alienage. It is nothing so much as a pile of matchstick houses thrown together around a great large tree that has no business being as perfectly picturesque as it is. There are puddles of clear water all over the road from the last time it rained, the ground’s gone muddy-thick with it, but it smells _clean_. The walls are built up high, and they keep out everyone with coin and all the trouble that comes with it.

There’s laughter coming from the orphanage. She can pick out Amethyne’s high-pitched giggle from among the children’s voices; her daughter is always just a little bit off-time.

Iona is almost sick with longing.

But Lady Elissa comes first, for now. Her Ladyship is already eyeing the old tree with a gleam in her eye that is, frankly, nothing short of ecstatic. She’s got a tremble to her, the kind that a person gets when they’ve been cooped up too long. And certainly, Lady Elissa has been cooped up too long; in Highever, Iona knew that she’d gone wherever she liked whenever she liked, and being trapped in the Queen’s Wing of the palace can’t have been an amusing deviation from the norm.

“Are you coming?” Iona asks lightly, already scrabbling at the bark. The handholds are still here after all this time. For a second, she’s six and her brother is hoisting her up into green foliage, her foot digging into the soft meat of his shoulder, her little hands uncalloused and soft and scraped raw against the wood—

She breathes in, breathes out, keeps herself calm. There will be time for memories later, back in the safety of the palace, when Amethyne isn’t so close that it takes every single iota of concentration she has not to swing around and run screaming into the orphanage. It takes everything she has not to sweep her daughter up and never let her go, not to fold Amethyne’s tiny body into the cavity of her chest and head for the hills, Lady Elissa be damned.

There’s nothing for it.

Iona’s got to climb, for now. 

The tree is strong and sturdy, built up over years. Someone has cared for it deeply. That much is obvious in the strength of the bark and the vibrant green of the leaves. Elissa follows Iona up and up into the embrace of the canopy. There was a tree like this in Highever, just not nearly this big or healthy. The Alienage there was built on rocky ground where little would grow. Most everything was built on rocky ground in Highever. Even if it wasn’t, the harsh wind off the sea would kill anything that tried to grow.

There were, however, these old, gnarled things that grew along the coast. Climbing up those was difficult but so worth it. Being able to see so far out across the Waking Sea, spotting ships as they moved between Highever and the Free Marches; she loves it still.

She reaches for a handhold and moves higher. This has always been her method of dealing with problems. Climbing up so high the drama of the world below cannot touch her. Maybe not the healthiest method of coping, but it works for her.

Settling on to a branch, Elissa can see clear over most of the buildings; only the tall spire in the distance still stands above it all. She can’t quite see the Amaranthine from here, but there is that special saltwater scent that has always kept her calm up here above the stench of the city. It isn’t quite the same, though. Even if she closes her eyes, she can’t convince herself that she’s home in Highever. This tree is wrong, not the strong sturdy evergreens of Highever. The scent isn’t the lung-clearing warmth she knows deeper than any truth. Even the saltwater is wrong. The Waking Sea always had this promise of wild in it. The waters there are more treacherous than anything the Amaranthine can muster and it showed in everything from the crashing tide to the coyly salty-sweet scent on the wind.

Oh, and the wind. How she misses the way it would turn from a gentle playful breeze to a shrieking storm with no warning. She never thought she’d miss the storms. They were an inconvenience most times, occasionally a tragedy. They were still a piece of Highever. The people all have the same strength and resilience, the ability to bend and not break when things get to be too rough.

 _Highever will be fine_ , she tells herself, _it weathered the Orlesians as any well as any sea-storm._

Rendon Howe won’t know what to do with Highever.

And that, more than anything, gives her just a little bit of strength. Highever will endure. It always does. Someday she’ll make her way back there and clean up Howe’s mess, but until then, this is just one more storm.

She breathes out, tears burning at her eyes. Denerim isn’t so bad from up here, she thinks. It certainly isn’t home, but it’s more tolerable. If only she could just stay in this tree until Highever calls her home. This far up, none of her problems seem much like problems. Highever is strong, Cailan is just a little man in a palace she is nowhere near. Rendon Howe is insignificant. She is still Elissa Cousland, always with—only no. It’s Iona with her, not Gil. Not Fergus.

That’s the lie, isn’t it? She’s been telling herself, telling Gil, that this changes nothing. Except that it does. Up here, nothing matters. Down there, she is still the future queen and under the watchful eye of so many detestable people. One wrong move and she could ruin everything. Continuing the relationship formed in Highever when she and Gil were years younger would cast doubts on so much if anyone were to know. It would end badly for her, for him, for Iona,  and possibly even for Highever.

Denerim is still Denerim, after all, and all it has ever been is a viper’s nest.

“What do you know about the dangers in the city?” She asks, looking up to find Iona on a higher branch. The elf looks perfectly at home here. She is home, Elissa reminds herself. Little blonde Iona belongs here with this tree in this tiny little neighborhood with too many people crammed together between unsteady buildings and stagnant water.

Iona swings backwards, golden hair a flash of sunlight between leaves, and flops down into a groove between two branches that was both the perfect shape for a body and worn smooth from  so many people curling up in it. It’d been her favourite nook to sleep in as a child, though getting up here had been less simple when she’d been small. Dangers, hm…

“That’s not quite the right question, my lady,” she says. She thinks of the Arl of Denerim’s son, his cruel mouth twisted up into a facsimile of a smile, and the dark pulsing bruises of the girls he put his hands on. He’s a pig, but he’s a surface danger, the kind that’s so obvious it’s not even worth commenting on. There are deeper and darker things crawling through Denerim’s streets than Vaughan Kendells, though he is among the worst of his ilk.

 _Nobles_ , she thinks, and her mouth is a slash across her face, pressed down into her skin like a brand. The thing about nobles is that they’ve more sovereigns than sense, and more cruelty than sovereigns. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it. They’ve no _sense_ , at least none that teaches compassion.

“What are you doing up there?! Get down, you’re going to kill yourself!”

Iona breathes a stream of unrepeatable filth under her breath that may or may not shock Lady Elissa, and looks down to find a man glaring right back up at her like he’s never seen a woman in a tree before. Maybe he hasn’t, but that’s a shame because women in trees are an entirely tasteful basis for a system of government. He’s got terrible hair, auburn-red and sticky-up all over, the kind of hair that stands out in a crowd and gets an elf killed if they’re not careful. It’s set over a sharp nose and a kind mouth, and a truly hideous shirt and breeches in green. He’s probably new, Valendrian can’t have given him the _if you want to live, try not to be so flashy_ talk.

Or maybe he’s just an idiot. It’s still up in the air.

“I don’t want to,” Iona says, and shifts just enough to hide Lady Elissa’s dark head from his gaze. An elf in the Alienage tree isn’t anything new. The future Queen is another story entirely, and Iona bats a hand at her to get her to quiet down, because Lady Elissa is hissing something that she doesn’t have the brain capacity to parse apart on top of playing word games with strange elf men. “Come and force me down, if you’re so concerned.”

He frowns, eyebrows drawing together, and he opens his mouth to probably argue some more. Instead, he inhales sharply. “Don’t move,” he says, “Maker, whatever you do, don’t move.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Iona retorts, but he disappears from her line of sight. She slowly becomes aware of Lady Elissa shaking her shoulder. “I’m sorry, my lady, he’s—”

Lady Elissa puts a finger to her lips, and jerks her head to a break in the leaves. The Alienage looks very small from here. Iona scoots up the branch, and looks out.

Bile shoots up her throat.

 _Vaughan_.

The Arl of Denerim’s son looks no different than Iona remembers: he’s still tall and broad-shouldered and _vile_ , an arrogant smirk carved across his face, and that hateful little mustache twitching as his mouth moves. His hand closes around a blonde elf girl’s elbow. Her face burns, and the memories hit like physical blows— _no one’s coming, we’re just having some fun, nothin’ but a whore, look at that, she bleeds like the rest of ‘em, didn’t think red was a colour for whores, that’s blue, wonder what she_ screams _like let’s find_ out; and then she’s shaking, vision going black around the edges, and then Amethyne’s bright smile is filling up her head and she can’t, can’t _breathe_ —

“—he can’t, he can’t, he can’t, he can’t-he-can’t-he- _can’t_ —” she’s saying, though she doesn’t realize that she’s saying it. Over and over, the words bubble up like acid in her stomach, can’t breathe, can’t see, oh, oh Maker, oh _Maker_ , Amethyne, Maker, _Amethyne_ , Maker—

"Shh. Breathe. Focus. You're safe. I've got you."

Lady Elissa brings her back.

“I need my daughter,” Iona whispers, strangled, the words an ugly exposition of guts and gore. “I need my daughter, I’m sorry, lady, I need to know she’s alright. Please. _Please_.”

“Okay, it’s okay. We’ll get her out of here. She’ll be safe at the palace,” Elissa says. She has no idea what’s set this off, just remembers all too clearly what the growing darkness is like when combined with the inability to breathe and the lighting racing through the veins to bring on a trembling so strong it feels as if the earth will split open from the violence of it. “Just tell me what you need right now.”

Whoever that man—the human, not the elf—is, he’s not good. Elissa glances down at him once more. There’s something in his movement that reminds her vaguely of the self-centered, entitled air of Arl Howe. She had never liked Howe and this man is eliciting the same desire to drive a dagger into his back. From here she can see the finery of his clothes; of course he’s of noble birth. Of _course_. She is Elissa Cousland, she of the worst luck in all of Thedas, after all. Of course one of the nobles of Denerim would have bad history with one of the few people in this damn city she will happily kill for.

“I don’t know,” Iona gulps. “I don’t know.”

Elissa can see all around them from here. None of this good. There’s no clear exit from the tree without descending to the ground. “I need you to focus. How do we get out of here without drawing attention?”

“Have to wait ‘til they’re gone, I think?” Iona says. The elf is not in good shape. They need out of here, and fast.

“There’s no other way out?” Elissa looks around. Surely one of the too-close buildings has to be near enough they can jump to a roof. This tree’s branches are thick all the way out; it’s more than strong enough to hold their weight until they can jump.

Looking up, she can see Iona just shaking her head. The elf is in no condition to think. She’ll just have to do this herself. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just one queen-to-be in an unknown city with a scared elf and currently stuck in a potentially dangerous situation. Not a big deal. She can handle this.

Maybe. 

Iona droops, drained of everything. It’s not a good feeling, but she can’t quite make herself care. Right now, all she wants is Amethyne and some place quiet and with about twelve locked doors to put between her daughter and the rest of the world. She won’t feel better until she’s able to do so. She can’t say what’s been happening outside the bubble that her world’s become, narrowing to nothing but Lady Elissa’s concern and her own obsessive drive to protect her daughter. Everything else is superfluous.

But then, of course, the yelling starts.

“Get _off_ me, Soris, I’ll _kill_ him!”

“I can’t take you _anywhere_ ,” someone says despairingly, and gets an elbow in the stomach for his trouble if the way his breath goes out of his body all at once is any indication. It’s the elf from before, Iona registers distantly. That odd wavering tone couldn’t be anyone else. “Maker, Kallian, you can’t just knock people over the head with bottles! That’s the Arl’s son!”

“I don’t care!” the first voice shouts. Female, and quickly picking up steam as she works herself into a frothing rage. “I don’t _care_! He does this all the time! He would have hurt Shianni!”

“You’ve made things _worse_ ,” says the man, very quietly.

“Do I ever do anything else?”  the woman says, wry, bitter. Iona knows that tone very, very well. She knows the rage that simmers just below the surface of the skin when a person speaks in that tone; the difference, of course, is that she’s learned to tamp it down. Iona’s temper is a tight-leashed thing. This girl’s is not.

“Not really,” he sighs.

“Are you going to go get the girl in the tree down? She’s listening,” the woman says, almost casual about it. “Or do you want me to do it?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting married or something?”

“Aren’t _you_?”

“Not after _that_ ,” he says under his breath, and Iona realizes that the only reason she can hear him at all is because he’s standing right beneath the branches where she and Lady Elissa are perched. He takes a slow breath in, and then asks “Er, hello?”

“Iona, do you want me to respond?”

Yes and no, Iona thinks, but can’t get it out of her craw. She shrugs instead, and Lady Elissa takes that as an affirmative. “Go away!” she shouts down at the pair of elves standing at the bottom of the trunk.

Silly, Iona thinks, a wave of fondness washing over her. No elf is going to take kindly to being told to _go away_ , not in their own Alienage. They don’t have much, her people, but they are fiercely proud of what they _do_ have, and just about as protective of it.

“I’m coming up!” the man shouts back. “Ow, Kally, don’t— _what are you doing, get back down here this instant, if you get hurt Uncle Cyrion will have my hide_.”

There are sounds of a scuffle muffled, and a split-second later a lemon-yellow head of hair has poked up through the foliage. She’s a girl, and she’d be quite pretty were it not for the blood crusted in rings beneath her nostrils. But she grins like she hasn’t broken anything, not even promises.

“Hey,” she says, “is everything okay?” like this is a conversation she has three times a week across the supper table and not up an ancient, possibly-sentient hardwood. There is something incredibly amusing about the situation as a whole, but Iona can’t quite put her finger on what it is. Hysteria, maybe.

Or maybe it’s something else entirely.

“We’re fine,” Iona exhales after a long minute. It comes out shaky, but it does, at the very least, come out. Lady Elissa is still, on her other side, and she can’t help but think that she’s trying to avoid drawing attention to herself. The lady is smart, Iona will give her that. “Thank you for worrying.”

“Nah, wasn’t me. Soris had his knickers up his ass about you, but that’s nothing new. Really, though, are you alright?” the woman says, as her gaze passes over Lady Elissa. There’s shrewd knowledge in those grey eyes, suddenly, as though she knows precisely who these two people sitting in this tree are. She doesn’t mention it, however, and for that Iona is grateful. “Do you need help getting down?”

“No,” Iona answers for the both of them.

“I’m Kallian,” the woman says, after a moment, grinning wicked as the end of the world. “And until, oh, five minutes ago, I was supposed to be getting married today. Not anymore, suckers.”

“ _Kally_!” comes the voice from below

She rolls her eyes, scoffs a little. “And _that_ is my cousin, Soris, who was _also_ supposed to be getting married, but he’s a worrywart, so I’d ignore him if I were you. Come on, then, let’s go, you look like you could use a proper meal in your belly.”

“I don’t think that’s—” Iona starts, but Kallian cuts her off.

“It’s fine. Uncle Valendrian’d like to meet you. Both of you.” Iona draws in a sharp breath, and Kallian’s grin only gets more terrible. “Don’t worry about the pet human. We’re already in enough trouble, Soris will have a fit if I kill anyone else today.”

“ _I will not have a fit_!”

“You’re _already_ having a fit, Sore. And stop interrupting me, I’m talking to our guests!”

He makes a sound like a dying goat in reply. It may have been the most ridiculous thing Iona had ever heard, and that is when she realizes that Kallian is the kind of person who takes everything lightly until she doesn’t, and the banked fury that hides behind her lips explodes into violence. There are shards of glass embedded in her hands, red blood oxidizing against the vhenadahl’s dark trunk

“Your hands are bleeding,” Iona says, gentle.

Kallian glances at her fingers, and her interest is almost clinical, like she can’t feel it at all. “Huh,” she says. “That can’t be healthy. I should probably do something about that.”

“You’re _bleeding_?!” Soris shouts from down below, half hysteric. “Get _down_ here, Kally!”

Kallian sighs, put upon, but she looks between Iona and Lady Elissa with clear eyes. “I’ll see you down there in a minute?”

She phrases it like a question, but it’s not, not really. It’s a command, and it’s one that she very obviously expects to have followed immediately. She nods once, and for a second there’s a hard edge to her smile, the kind that a person only gets when they’ve seen and done too much. It’s never a kind thing, that edge, but it is an honest one: it’s a killer’s edge, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything but that.

When someone dies tonight at the other end of this woman’s blade, Iona won’t be surprised at all.

Kallian disappears in a flash of blonde. There’s nothing to indicate she was there at all, except for the bloody handprints. That’s a little off-putting, actually, and Iona finds herself rubbing at the bark to smear it away.

“Don’t be annoying, Soris,” she hears from very far away. “They’re good people.”

“ _They_?!”

“Did I say they? I meant _her_ —”

Good people, indeed.

 

 

 


	3. chiffon nightmares

 

“Ow!” Elissa looks down at where Iona is crouched low to the floor, pins between her lips and shears in her hands. “Could you be a little more careful where you stick those things, else the dress may turn red from all the blood.”

After a moment, it becomes obvious Iona is focusing too much on the ruffles to hear her. Maker, why so many _ruffles_? What is this fabric? Wait, no, she knows this. Tulle, was it? The abomination is made from fine Antivan silk and that awful fluffy netting Oriana was so fond of. There’s a lovely lace too, Orlesian, perhaps? Or maybe Antivan, she really has no basis for knowing. Finery was more Oriana and Mother’s preference. Elissa? She preferred armor. Still does, actually. She can see the fine inscribed boots sitting in the corner of the room and the desire to find a full armor set to match them aches beneath her heart.

Except, there’s this.

“Honestly, who thought this was appropriate attire for a royal wedding?” she asks, and knows the answer before Iona can remove the pins. “Andraste in a sea squall, don’t tell me this was _Anora’s_.”

“Wedding dresses are expensive, Lady Elissa. But likely, this was made for you,” Iona mutters around a mouthful of pins. She’s been picking at the seaming of this damned dress’ pull-ups for half an hour, now, and she doesn’t think she’s any closer to getting the stitching out than she’d been before she’d begun.

“Shouldn’t someone have at least consulted me beforehand?” Elissa says, scowling in the mirror as another layer of ruffles falls away from her hips. “This is a monstrosity. How am I supposed to be able to fight in this thing?”

"You’re not. That’s the point.”

Elissa huffs. “Well, that’s ridiculous.”

A funny little smile lights across Iona’s face for a moment, a wry thing that isn’t at all happy. “I don’t think they expected the future Queen of Ferelden to carry a sword. It’s unbecoming, my lady. Oh, don’t move, this might hurt.”

“I was only planning on a couple of daggers,” Elissa says and it _isn’t_ whining. “And maybe a garrotte or two. Perhaps a vial of poison? Maybe a light mail beneath the dress for protection.”

“There will be no mail if I can help it, my lady, but I should be able to get rid of some of… all of this. At least the fluff, we can get rid of the fluff.”

And get rid of the fluff Iona would. This dress, lovely as it is, was designed for someone without half a brain in their head. It was designed for a _lady_ , certainly not someone like Lady Elissa, who, Iona suspected, would not be caught dead in this much tulle. On someone petite and fair, perhaps it would be very pretty! But not Lady Elissa.

Iona is quite graciously coming to the realization that Lady Elissa would like nothing more than for their positions to be reversed, if only because then she could leave. It’s a sad thing, to be trapped, especially when you’ve got someone you’d much rather be on the run with.

And Lady Elissa has Ser Gilmore, though Iona doesn’t think that’s going to last much longer. For all that Lady Elissa wants to leave, there’s a sense of duty to her, or at least a sense of revenge. They go hand in hand, those things, for all the good it does either of them.

“All right, take it off,” Iona sighs at last, after one last pin set in place. She’ll have to take the waist in because Lady Elissa isn’t eating much, but that’s not a surprise. “Is there anything you really don’t want? What about sleeves?”

“Sleeves are good for hiding knives at the wrists,” Elissa says, grinning like a fox. “And the lace is beautiful.”

“I thought you might,” Iona says, and begins unlacing the dreadful thing. She’ll have to fix that, put on buttons instead. Perhaps the pearl-headed ones, they’re so pretty, and Amethyne does like them—

Iona’s throat goes tight, and she closes her eyes for a little longer than a standard blink. Oh, Amethyne.

“Iona? Are you alright?” The elf has fallen silent. Twisting around to look at the other woman, Elissa finds Iona staring at the laces of the gown. “Does this have anything to do with Amethyne? I promise you we will get her out of there.”

“Ah,” she says. “Well, uh, I suppose I should… Amethyne, she’s still young, and I know that you’ll—”she stops again, to breathe, to _breathe_ , she has to _breathe_ , “—we’ll get her out. But she’s not—not all of it, my lady.”

“Who do I need to kill?” she responds, completely serious. If _anyone_ has hurt Iona, they will be very, very dead before they even register that they are not alone.

Iona laughs a little, very softly. “Oh, no one. It was a long time ago. But there were… repercussions.”

Elissa wrinkles her nose. Elves in cities is something she’s heard a little about. Highever was largely calm, but there were... _incidents_. Especially when new people came to town. “Just say the word and whoever he is, he’s dead. No questions.”

“My lady, you absolutely will not,” Iona tells her, lips going thin. “Else we’d be hunting for a very long time. I just—Amethyne, she doesn’t know, and it wasn’t her fault. I just want her home, that’s all.”

“I promise you, I will do everything in my power to have her here before the wedding.” She makes a mental note to pay more attention. Whoever he is, he will die. She will see to that. If this is what she thinks it is, then this boy could be trouble for Amethyne in the future.

“I know, my lady,” Iona says, dips her head. “About yesterday…” she stops, because she doesn’t know where to go with it. To explain would entail truly _explaining_ , and explaining _everything_ , and then eventually word would get about because that was what word it, it got around, and then—and then everyone would look at her with sad eyes, and Amethyne wouldn’t be safe anymore.

And Amethyne’s safety is paramount.

“It is fine if you cannot say it,” Elissa says gently. “Such incidents were, while rare, not altogether uncommon in Highever. Even with my family’s clear support of the elves.”

Iona exhales relief. “Thank you, my lady.”

 

—

 

Kallian wakes silent.

It’s old habit; wake silent, stay alive. It’s one of many things her mother drilled into her before she died, and Kallian hasn’t forgotten it yet. Of course, it’s no good when your (favourite) cousin has just yanked the covers off you and is looming over you, grinning like the madwoman she is.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Shianni sings. It is way too early for that level of enthusiasm. How does she do it. “Killed anyone today?”

“No,” Kallian grumbles, and pulls the covers over her head. “Why’re you waking me up?”

“Sun’s up, and so am I,” Shianni tells her. “C’mon, get up, we have wedding preparations! Did you think I forgot why you’re not _already_ married and out of this place? Nuh-uh, not even a little bit.”

“You’re just excited for the booze,” Kallian says, and makes a sound of intense dismay when Shianni pulls the covers off again. “Give ‘em back, Ahni, s’not fair!”

“Nope,” says Shianni, and drags the blanket all the way across the room. “If you want ‘em, you’ll have to come and _get_ ‘em!”

“That’s not _fair_ ,” Kallian flops back down to the pallet, and can’t help but dramatically throw an arm across her eyes. “That means I have to _move_!”

“That’s the point,” Shianni says wickedly. Kallian can’t see the grin, but she knows what it looks like; it’s that horrible bright one that they mastered when they were little and they wanted to _really_ annoy Soris. And she’s about to get up, she is, she just wants five more minutes—

“Andraste’s ass, get _up_ ,” Shianni says, and then Kally is suddenly bearing her cousin’s weight.

“Did you get fatter?”

“Do you _want_ to die?!”

And then they’re squabbling, batting at each other and laughing and they’ve probably woken up half the neighbourhood, _good job Shianni_. The blanket is thick overtop of them, and after a moment they lie still.

Soris sighs. The girls are up. He glances over at where Uncle Cyrion sits with Valendrian and...oh _Maker_. Why today, of all mornings, do those two have to make any kind of trouble. They could hear that ‘kill somebody’ comment clear as glass in here. Valora and Nelaros show no reaction but what must they be _thinking_? Kally’s involvement with that organization is supposed to be over. Uncle Cyrion _promised_ Valendrian it was over. Kallian promised Cyrion and Valendrian both that it was over.

If these weddings actually happen at this point, it will be a sure sign the Maker has returned.

“Tea, anyone?” He says, smiling. Distract, distract, distract, please don’t listen to the obvious fighting and giggling going on from his cousin’s bedroom, please don’t think anything untoward about his family, pleasepleaseplease…

And then the bedroom door opens to reveal a disheveled Shianni and an sleep-tousled Kallian.

“Good morning, family,” Shianni smiles beatifically. “How are we all today?”

Kallian hates her magnificently. This is the worst morning, if only because every morning is the worst morning. She’s got her blankets wrapped tightly around her shoulders, and she’s kind of—squinting, the way she does when she’s not had enough sleep. She shuffles to the table like a dead thing, and then settles. There is a leaf in her hair.

“You look… very tired,” Valora says, a little hesitantly. “Are you alright?”

Kallian makes a sound like dying, and drops her head to the table with hollow _thud_ sound.

This is… not good. Soris sits down beside Kally, forcing a smile and handing a teacup to the two strangers.

“S’ris,” Kally mumbles, “tea? Want s’me...”

There’s blood on her hand. There is blood. On her hand. The hand with one finger outstretched _poking_ his arm repeatedly. In full view of _everyone_. He chokes on his life and says, “ _You killed someone last night?!”_

“No…? Had a n’sebleed… S’ris, tea…”

He slides a teacup over to her silently, the liquid sloshing over the blood _that is definitely still fresh with no sign of a nosebleed_. At least she lied. Surely they can’t think too badly of his family, can they? Valora has been rather quiet this morning and Nelaros has barely said a word.

Poor boy probably has no idea what to say. Maker, what was he _told_.

Soris coughs politely behind a fist and smiles brightly. “So, Nelaros, know anything about our new queen?”

“She’s a Cousland.” He says. “Good people. She’s a hellraiser, but still a Cousland.”

Valora nods hesitantly. “She’s—she’s quite kind, Lady Elissa. I have a friend who—well, it doesn’t matter, but she’s said that Lady Elissa is—is a good one. A noble, I mean, a good noble, versus, well…”

She trails off, and looks down at the table. The previous week hangs between them all, suddenly, heavy like sour milk. Highever’s Alienage is different than Denerim’s, but things still happen, and there are always going to be cruel nobles. There is no need to bring it up; the fact that she isn’t already married to the bright-haired man sitting across from her says it all. If Kallian hadn’t—but there’s no telling what would have happened. It’s over. It’s done.

(Maker, she doesn’t want to stay here. Soris looks a little bit sick.)

Kally sips at her tea, slowly returning to the land of the living. She’ll need another cup, at least, it was a long and violent night. She sets the empty cup down in its chipped little saucer, and tries for a smile. It probably comes out a queasy ill-fated thing, but at least it comes out. These people are to be her in-laws, and she can feel the way her father’s eyes are boring holes into her head. Oh, he’s going to be so _disappointed_ , she forgot to get cleaned up.

“I’m sorry,” she says, the lie rolling off her tongue easily; she is not sorry at all. “I’m useless before I’ve had a cup of tea. Good morning, Nelaros, I hope you slept well.”

Kallian is very...spirited? Spirited in the same way the elders talked about little Elissa Cousland, tearing down the streets for the docks with that Bannorn boy and Mabari at her heels. He’d been told she was strong and kind, the kind of woman who would make a good wife and mother.

He’s increasingly thinking Kallian wants to be no one’s wife and no one’s mother.

“I slept fine,” he lies. The tea tastes bitter. Everything does since the criers went through the streets last night with news that Highever has fallen. Even if it weren’t so loud and filthy and stinky in this city, _that_ would be enough to ensure no sleep at all. “You?”

“Well,” she says, a little wryly, “I woke up covered in blood and to Shianni’s teasing, so not all that well. I’ve certainly slept better.”

Soris just wants to cry. This is not going well. At this rate, they will never be married. Andraste bless them, give them strength, please don’t let that coy smile Valendrian is hiding with his teacup be a lecture in the making. He holds out the teapot, refilling their visitors’ cups. “It’s such a lovely day out, isn’t it?”

“Let’s go for a walk!” Shianni says. Oh, Maker, this is _fantastic_ , she hasn’t seen Uncle Cyrion this red in _weeks_ , and Valendrian… Valendrian’s going to have a _fit_ , and for once in her life it’s going to be at someone else! Valendrian having a fit is kind of the worst thing ever, except when he’s having it at someone else, and then it’s the _best_ thing ever.

Her cousins both send her dark looks (though, admittedly, for very different reasons: Soris wants this to happen because he is a weirdo, and Kally is, well, _Kally_ ), but Shianni just continues to grin at them. What can they do, really? _She’s_ not the one getting married; they brought this on themselves, and now it is entirely up to them to deal with it. If she so happens to be in the right time and place to make it a little more difficult, they can’t _really_ expect her not to take it and run. The three of them have spent too much of their lives getting up in each other’s business for anything else.

And, of course, if the marriages fall through, then neither of them will leave, and Shianni won’t be alone with an ancient tree and city full of humans who think she isn’t capable enough to shine their shoes, never mind the three darkly-glassed bottles of wine tucked beneath her bed.

There is that, too, but she doesn’t say it aloud.

Uncle Cyrion grimaces. “Are you sure? It looks like it might rain.”

He just wants to keep them within his sight, where he can be sure they can’t get into trouble. He knows as soon as Kally is out of his immediate sphere, she’ll manage to find the nearest fight and get herself right into the thick of it, seething rage and vitriol like no one else.

“Ada,” Kally says, “it hasn’t rained in a month. It’s not going to rain today. A walk will do everyone good, won’t it?”

What she means is: _if I don’t get out of this house, I am going to scream_.

“Yes,” Valendrian says slowly. “You all are so young. Take advantage of your youth and the good weather. Denerim’s skies do not stay kind for long this time of year.”

Oh _Maker_. Valendrian is mad. Angry. Furious. Soris knows that tone of voice, knows it well. It’s always been directed at Kallian. Or...no, just Kallian. But now it’s at him _and_ Kallian. This is all wrong, all bad.

A walk. Yes. A walk will be good. A long walk to another country, maybe.

“We shall be going, then?” and it comes out like a question why did he phrase it like a question oh Maker he’s going to die and it is going to be all because Valendrian is going to _kill them all_.

Nelaros stands up suddenly. “Yes, a walk sounds lovely. Valora, what do you say?”

Valora’s smile is a little tremulous, but she stands, as well. She offers a hand to Shianni.

“Oh,” Shianni says, eyes glinting, “why not walk with Nelaros? I’ll get Soris and Kally out, record time, I promise. Just give me five, we’ll meet you outside.”

Shianni watches the way they watch each other and thinks: _that would be efficient_.

And it would be an elegant solution. Whatever Uncle Cyrion had told Nelaros about Kally had been a bald-faced _lie_ , because the boy keeps shooting these tiny little glances at her out of the corner of his eye like he’s not sure what to _do_ with her. To be fair, not a lot of people know how to handle Kally, because she _is_ beautiful. But she’s beautiful like a forest fire is beautiful, the same consuming hunger for the world that eats everything in its path and leaves nothing but ash in its wake, and that’s not an easy thing. And of course Shianni loves her, because there is no world that exists where Shianni _doesn’t_ love Kallian Tabris, but Shianni is also related to Kally, and that is a mitigating factor.

There are not many people outside of family who can accept and love Kally, acidic temper and murder-inclined as she is.

“Soris, get her to the bathroom, I’ll go find clothes,” she tells him, quietly enough that Valendrian’s awful little smile doesn’t get any wider. “Maybe get the blood off?”

This is not his family. This is so not his family. There must have been a mix up at the midwife’s. He nods numbly and grips Kallian’s arm maybe a _bit_ too hard, dragging her off to the bathroom. Just anything to get out of that tiny little room with that awful smile of Valendrian’s and Uncle Cyrion’s increasing...what is that emotion, exactly? No, he doesn’t want to know.

“C’mon, Kal. Let’s get this over with.”

“Don’ wanna,” Kally says, slumping into him. The tea’s wearing off already. It’s just that Kally has had maybe three hours of sleep, and that just isn’t enough; she’s hardly functional on anything less than six, and though eight is acceptable, ten is better. “This whole marriage thing is a chore. Do we have to?”

“Do you have to run off with _bloody_ _Red Jenny_ at all hours of the night?” he hisses. Once the door is closed securely behind them, he just lets everything come pouring out.“Really, Kally, what were you thinking? The guard has been more active since Lady Elissa came to town and there have been more soldiers as the king prepares for Ostagar and do you realize how dangerous this really is? This isn’t a game, Kallian. People die. Aunt Adaia died because of this. Uncle Cyrion and Valendrian have made a good match for you. Why throw it away because of some stupid thieves guild?”

Kally hits him in the face. It’s not gentle, either, she hits him hard and fast and unlovely, exactly how she’d hit someone she was trying to kill. Because there are _lines_ , and her mother is one that Kally will never allow anyone to cross. Not even Soris. He’s her brother, but not even Soris can tell her what to do, about this.

“My _mother_ ,” she says, so quietly that it’s hardly been said at all, “died because three _humans_ killed her. And she left Red Jenny to _me_. It’s _mine_. You don’t get to—to—” she breaks off on a bitten curse. “You don’t get to. You just don’t.”

Soris sighs. A full body sigh, one that blows through the body like a storm blowing out and he just feels _tired_. “Sorry, Kal. Just, promise me you won’t hurt Uncle Cyrion. This marriage is good for the whole family. It’s not just about you. He’s just trying to make sure there’s someone to watch out for you when he’s not around.”

“I hope that bruises,” she tells him acidly, and shoves him out of the bathroom, and then slams the door in his face.

“It will,” he says through the door, “it’s one of your hits, after all.”

“Go away, I’m mad at you,” she yells, incensed. The water in the tub is running low, they’ll have to do something about that. She draws a bowl, finds the little sliver of soap tucked neatly by the salt-warped mirror, and begins to wash. It’s a foul thing, soap, but they can’t do without it. Kally winces when she rubs at the dark red crescents in her palms. She’s always been prone to clenching her fists when she gets angry. The fury stays buzzing against her skin for a long moment before it drains away; she knows Soris is right. He usually is, is the problem. But not about her mother, and certainly not about Red Jenny, and no matter _what_ her father thinks, Kally is perfectly able to take care of herself. She doesn’t need a husband for that.

Kally scrubs the blood off. It’s already dried, and it flakes away like so much dust. She hasn’t washed her hair in a week, and she can feel the accumulated dirt like a second skin. The water in the tub glints tauntingly.

She grits her teeth.

Maker _take_ it.

Kally dunks in her head.

For a moment, the world is silent and cool and blue all around her, and she is reminded, as she always is, how much she loves water. It’s an easy barrier to put between herself and the world, even if it only lasts for a little while.

The knocking is a distant thing.

“Go _away_ , Soris!” Kally surfaces just long enough to shriek.

“It’s not Soris,” comes Shianni’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“No,” says Kally, but she knows Shianni’s going to ignore it. She dunks her head back in the tub instead. If she’s lucky, she can hold her breath long enough that Shianni will get bored and leave her alone.

She’s not lucky, of course. Shianni pulls her away from the tub.

“Are you trying to drown yourself? Come on, that’s pathetic,” her cousin says as she throws a mostly-dry towel over Kally’s head. “And you’re dripping everywhere, that’s gross. Get decent, you’re a wreck.”

“You’re not much better,” Kally says petulantly, but she wipes her face.

“No, I guess not,” Shianni says. She settles down next to Kally, stretches her legs out. “Soris is going to have a spectacular black eye.”

“He deserves it,” and there’s mutiny on Kally’s lips, because there’s always mutiny on Kally’s lips. “He wants to get married? Fine, let him, I don’t care. But I didn’t ask for this, Ahni, I didn’t.”

“None of us did,” Shianni shrugs a single shoulder. A strand of bright red hair has escaped one of her braids and she idly brushes it away. It curls with the moisture in the air. “You don’t have to be such a disgrace about it.”

“I’m not a disgrace!”

“You are definitely a disgrace, Kallian.”

“Lush,” Kally mutters.

“Harriden,” Shianni says, trying not to smile.

“I don’t want to leave,” Kally says, softly, so softly, and she drops her head to Shianni’s shoulder. “What am I going to do without you? And he’s _boring_ , holy Maker, I have never met anyone so boring in my whole life! He’s more boring than Soris! I didn’t think it was _possible_ to be more boring than _Soris_ , Ahni!”

“Soris _is_ pretty boring,” Shianni agrees. But a moment later, she’s nudging Kally with her elbow. “You’re getting my dress wet.”

And Kally laughs. It’s a little weak, but it’s still a laugh, and that’s what Shianni had been aiming for. Better than nothing, anyway. She asks “Ready to go take a walk with your future husband?”

“No,” Kally says, and it’s the truth. “But I will if I have to.”

“You do,” Shianni says, but gently. “If he’s not completely awful, he’ll help us push Soris in the fountain.”

“See,” Kally sniffles, “this is why you’re my favourite.”

Shianni helps Kally up. “Brush your hair,” she says, and then raises her voice loud enough to be heard through the rest of the house. “Hey, Soris! You can stop hiding at the keyhole and come in now, she’s not mad anymore!”

He enters glumly. Between the black eye and the enormous bruise from where Shianni pinched his arm, these two will have him black and blue for—sod it all. There is no way the wedding is happening. “‘Lo. Sorry about that, Kal. I was out of line.”

These two...it’s complicated. They’re his girls. His sisters. They get in trouble and he bails them out. He keeps them safe. It’s what he promised Aunt Adaia. It’s the promise he’s kept to Uncle Cyrion, even if no words have been exchanged about it. These are his girls to protect and they are just slumped together beside the tub, Kally soaking wet and in nothing but a threadbare towel and Shianni sitting beside her, dress soaking up most of the water still dripping from too long hair.

Maker, when was the last time Kally had a haircut? When was the last time she actually had a decent night’s sleep? He can see the dark circles beneath her eyes and he—he just made a mess of it.

Always does.

They’re just a mess, the three of them. And this is the cycle: they’ll fight an then he’ll sit beside them in the puddle to Kally’s left while Shianni is to the right and they’ll be three little mice in a hovel too dirty for even the vilest rat but it’s still the best place in the whole damn city because it’s where they are.

“Valora and Neloras are gone, by the way,” he says, “I think they’re cute.”

“Knew it,” Shianni says, and her face splits into a smirk as he flops down on Kally’s other side, just as she knew he would. “They’ve been eyeing each other all week.”

“You’re terrible,” Kally says, prods her in the side. It pushes her back into the curve of Soris’ body, and for an awful split-second, she thinks he’ll shove her away. But he doesn’t, and she presses back just a little bit heavier. She’s never been very good at apologies, and even though she hit him for an entirely valid reason, she still _hit_ him. One of these days, Kally swears she’ll get a hold on her temper.

(Probably not today.)

“Aren’t I, though,” Shianni sighs. She tilts her head back to look at the ceiling. “We should probably get up. Valendrian’s going to yell.”

“When isn’t he yelling, though,” Kally says.

“This is true, but Uncle Cyrion was looking at him all funny.” Soris muses, laying his head atop Kally’s. “Almost like when that pirate lady came through last year and Shianni was drooling everywhere.”

“I wanted to _marry_ her,” Shianni sighs dreamily. She tucks herself around Kally so that she and Soris make a kind of protective barrier around her, a closed parenthesis. “She was _perfect_.”

“She was _terrifying_.” Soris curls up a little so they’re all wrapped up together with Kal’s legs over his and Shianni’s arms everywhere, her fingers in dark and light hair alike. “You have terrible taste in women, Ahni.”

“You’re just mad that she didn’t take _you_ drinking,” Shianni tells him, and bursts into laughter when Kally nods vigorously in agreement.

He snorts. “Maybe. She was gorgeous. Terrifying, but gorgeous.”

Kally opens her mouth to agree, because the pirate _had_ been gorgeous, all dark skin and dark eyes and flashing gold jewelry across a laughing face. But then there’s an ominous _cre-eeek_ , and the door opens, and she shuts her mouth because Andraste’s left tit, she’d forgotten that they are in trouble.

Valendrian is standing in the doorframe with his arms crossed, and he _does not look happy_.

“Just what is going on here?” He’d come here expecting the three to be bundled up together, yes, but at least _hoping_ that Kallian would be dressed by now. But no. She’s still...just a child. She’s still a child. Andraste, maybe Cyrion was right.

No. Kallian is almost nineteen winters now. Soris is six years older than that. It’s time they took their places in society. Long past time for Soris, in fact. He breathes in deeply, smelling the sickly smell of soap and dried blood, the slowly rotting wood of the house. “You three were to be going on a walk, were you not?”

Soris scrambles up because he’s the only one with brains, and Shianni goes because no one likes getting yelled at. Kally thinks about not moving, but she thinks that might be pushing it a little. Valendrian’s gone an interesting shade of red that probably isn’t too healthy; it might be a burst blood vessel, and for all that Kally loves to push his buttons, she doesn’t really want to give him a heart attack. She sighs, and pushes off the floor.

“Yes, hahren,” she says. “We’re going.”

Cyrion watches as his sullen little brood all file out the front door, the flash of his daughter’s bright blonde hair dancing like sunlight through leaves as the door closes behind her. Kallian is so young, still so young, and never mind what the old laws say, she’s not cut out for children or motherhood, at least not yet. Adaia hadn’t been, either, but the difference was that Cyrion had _known_ that.

“Valendrian…” he says, and he tries to keep it from sounding _too_ scolding.

“Please don’t. I already know,” he says.

“Do you?” Cyrion asks, eyebrows climbing up his forehead. “Do you really?”

Valendrian sinks into the rickety chair once more. “Yes, I do. You’re going to say I’m too harsh with them. But really, Cyr. They are not children anymore.”

“They have not been children in a very long time,” Cyrion says. He steps careful, and places a gentle hand on Valendrian’s shoulder. They have been friends since they were children, and Valendrian knew Adaia maybe better than Cyrion himself did. “Kallian is too much like her mother. She never would have been happy, old friend.”

“And she will never be safe here,” he says, thinking all to clearly of Adaia and the days that followed. “Highever will be safer. Howe may have taken the castle, but the alienage there is strong enough it will take more than an ambitious shem to destroy it.”

“Ah,” Cyrion says. “So _that’s_ what this is about.”

He should have known that it came back to Adaia. It always does, in the end; sometimes, when he looks at Kallian and Shianni and Soris, he sees a little of himself and Valendrian and Adaia, right there brought back to life. They trade places all the time—sometimes Shianni is Valendrian, haughty and unforgiving, sometimes Soris is Cyrion himself, sometimes his daughter is his wife, so furious and bright and _alive_. Not always, but sometimes. And he should have expected this.

Cyrion sinks to his knees, and threads his fingers through Valendrian’s with the ease of old practise. He smiles a little faintly. “She would be proud of us. Of our children.”

“I know all that, but that does not mean they have to have the same end.”

“They won’t,” says Cyrion, simple, clean, certain.

Oh, what it would be to have such certainty in the future. Cyrion has always been like that, looking towards the future. Even now, with his hair greying and lines etching into sun-brushed skin, Cyrion remains so young simply because he is always so _hopeful_. “How can you be so sure? Especially after all that’s happened. Surely you see the similarities.”

“Of course I do,” Cyrion says mildly. “It would be impossible not to.”

“History has a way of repeating, dear,” says Valendrian, measured in years of repetition, because this is one thing that he has always been certain of. History will repeat. It will always repeat. If one lives in Denerim, it is the most basic fact of life. “Do you really think the humans have changed that much in so little time?”

“I like to think,” Cyrion says, “that they may begin to. And Soris is not you. Shianni is not me. Kallian… Kallian is not Adaia.”

It doesn’t hurt to say, because it is true. Kallian is very much like her mother, the same in colouring and attitude and that damnable tendency to dare the world to come at her over and over. She is the same in nature, perhaps, wild and lovely and dangerous, but she is not as afraid as Adaia was. There is nothing in the universe that scares his daughter, and Cyrion has never done anything to discourage that. He never reigned her in, never explained that she was an elf and so therefore humans would always see her as _lesser_ ; and why would he? She would learn it or she would not, and the choice was hers.

(Of course, that she picked the choice he’d never even thought of was exactly what he should have known she’d do. Kallian is not her mother, but she is her mother’s daughter.)

Cyrion doesn’t remind him that there is twenty years and three children between them, because this is something Valendrian knows almost too well. It had been a brutal, bloody thing, and many lives had been lost. The orphanage had opened not three days after Adaia died: the need had been so great.

And despite all of this, despite all the death and the blood and the shem push for destruction, Cyrion still manages to find it within himself to think of the future without fear. He lost Adaia’s face to time years ago, her voice and her smile gone longer even than that. It is a blessing, because now he can think about her without hurting.

“They will make their own path,” Cyrion says, very quietly. “I think they will be alright.”

 

—

 

Cailan Theirin is not an idiot.

(Alright, he is a little bit of an idiot, he can admit that. Everyone is a little bit of an idiot _sometimes_.)

But today, Cailan Theirin is not an idiot.

The Queen’s Wing is empty, and has been so for several hours. He wouldn’t have even come up, really, except that when he’d sent up a messenger with an invitation to dinner, the messenger had come back with a very queer look on his face like he wasn’t sure he’d found the right place, and had apologized twelve times which, beyond being eleven times too many, had given Cailan the beginnings of a headache.

And so he’d decided that he’d ask her himself, because maybe the messenger _had_ got lost, and there was nothing wrong at all. He’d gone bounding up the three flights of stairs to her wing, forcing himself to ignore the sudden anxiety curling in his stomach, and knocked on the white door he no longer had a key to while simultaneously trying not to rock back and forth on the balls of his feet because that was uncouth.

There had been no answer.

Cailan was surprised by how unsurprised he was.

And so now he’s standing here, a little bit at a loss. Elissa may be—well, there are a lot of words for what Elissa is, but none of them that come to mind are precisely what he’s getting at, because she’s beautiful but beauty isn’t normally this frustrating—flighty, but she’s not an idiot.

Or at least he hopes she’s not.

But she’s not in her rooms, and that means one of two things: she’s either been kidnapped, or she’s gone and snuck out. To be fair, kidnapping someone from inside the palace isn’t impossible, but it _is_ very difficult, and Cailan is nearly positive that Elissa would have put up a very thorough fight: there would have been evidence of that. And her lady-in-waiting is a formidable woman in her own right, for all that she’s a tiny waif of a thing. She’s shut the door in his face twice already, and he doesn’t doubt she’d do it again if she had the chance. She’s rather loyal. It’s a good thing.

So, the Queen-to-be has snuck out.

Cailan sighs.

He’s going to need backup, for this.

This is not good. This is just not his day at all. Gil was just walking rounds around the floor, trying to get Dane to settle down, and they come back to find _this_.

Somewhere, the Maker is laughing.

“Good Afternoon, Your Majesty.” he bows low and says what is probably the worst thing possible, “May I help you with anything?”

“We, er, may have a problem,” Cailan says.

“And that would be?” Might as well make this as painful as possible. There’s no good way to do it, after all, admit that he has been complicit in Lissy’s escapes into the wilds of Denerim. Or that there has even been more than one of them. Surprising, though, that Cailan would still be out here. Surely the king has a key to the Queen’s Wing, after all. Or the chamberlain, if nothing else. The creepy old man probably knows exactly what’s going on.

“Well, I don’t think Elissa’s in her rooms. Actually, I know she isn’t, or else Iona would have taken the opportunity to—no, never mind, I just know she’s not there, and I need your help to find her before anyone else realizes she’s gone.”

That’s, well. That’s not at all the response he was expecting.

“My Lady will be back before nightfall.” Possibly with a little elf girl in tow if she was serious about finding Iona’s daughter. Which, knowing Lissy, there will be a little girl in tow when they return tonight. And then the cover story will go into effect because they’re going to go against the Chantry to do this, not like that’s going to cost Lissy any sleep.

The Revered Mother in Highever made her opinion of the Templar Order known enough times that he doubts any of her flock will just hand a child over to the Circle without first asking many, many questions.

Except this is the King of Fereldan asking about his missing bride. There are something conversations that it is perhaps not best to have right now. Of course, if this is the first time that the king has noticed Lissy’s not where she’s supposed to be, then he’s likely got bigger problems than a mage child potentially hiding in the palace.

“Yes, I know, she always is. Vaughan Kendalls is out in the city, Ser Gilmore,” Cailan says, tries very hard not to reach up and pinch the bridge of his nose, because of course Ser Gilmore wouldn’t have any idea about the Arl of Denerim’s son. “The man is a horror.”

“She’s armed, sire,” says Gil, thinking back to that last awful bloody night in Highever, “and I rather suspect she’s more dangerous than any arl’s child.”

“If the Alienage makes it through the night without a riot, we’ll be lucky,” Cailan says, flatly.

The Alienage rioting because of one man? Denerim cannot so unstable. The city would have burned to the ground Ages ago. “Surely this one man cannot be such a threat.”

“He can be,” Cailan says. “We need to find her, now, and we must be quiet about it.”

Gil chews on the inside of his cheek, contemplating how best to explain Elissa’s little mission to the obviously worried king. He’s fairly certain this is going to be one of the few times he ever sees Cailan being, well, being exactly what a king should be. “That might be a bit difficult, Your Majesty. Dane and I were left behind because we would draw too much attention, but if your Alienage here is really as you are suggesting, then ourselves with you will be far too obvious to search for her with any kind of stealth.”

Well, Cailan thought, Ser Gilmore wasn’t wrong. They _would_ draw attention, and Cailan had never been any kind of good at stealth. Swordplay, yes, as long as there is a shield involved, and he ‘s not half bad with with two-handed weapons, but that always includes massive armor and a fair bit of clanking about. It’s no good for stealth. He scrubs his hands across his face.

“So what do we do?” he asks, because he can’t _help_ it. Sometimes he just feels so lost, and so young, and he never wishes more for Anora than he does at moments like these. She would be calm and cool and collected, and she would know precisely what needed to be done.

And Cailan doesn’t know what needs to be done. Surprise, surprise.

Gil sighs heavily. “Dane and I will go. If nothing else, he can go alone to draw Milady’s attention.” This is more trouble than it’s worth. Lissy can take care of herself and Iona’s a bloody terror if given daggers to throw. He suspects she’d be scary with dual-weapons too if she ever had an inkling to try, but that’s another thought for another time. Right now, he is for some strange reason trying to calm a clearly nervous king. Maker, Cailan looks like a child lost for his mother, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as he is. “Stay here. If we’re not back by nightfall, send the guard.”

Not that that will be necessary. Not that he’s going to say that. Lissy’s going to be angry as it is. Best not anger the king as well.

Cailan breathes in through his nose. It’ll have to do.

“Thank you, Ser Gilmore,” he says. And then he’s smiling, just a little, though it’s not a happy smile. “I know none of this is ideal. I didn’t want it, and I know she doesn’t, either.”

There’s more he wants to say, something about Anora and how she’s always been so much better at this ruling thing than he had ever been able to pretend to be, but somehow it doesn’t feel like the right time. In fact, now feels like the very worst time, and dumping his issues on other people never helped before. He doubts it’ll help now.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” Cailan says, because he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to say it to her himself.

Well, that’s just—

No, that’s a bitter thought and that’s not fair to anyone. Instead, Gil takes a deep breath and asks, “Permission to speak freely?”

“You don’t need to ask,” Cailan says.

“Elissa doesn’t really want to marry _anyone_. Not right now, at least,” says Gil and he tries to stay civil about it because this is such a delicate thing and Cailan just seems so _unsure_ of himself, almost. But Gil remembers that day on the stormy coast after Arl Eamon came, when Lissy’s hair twisted wild in the wind and she stared like a starving woman across the sea towards Kirkwall and the freedom it promised. “She rejected many suitors before you. Princes and lords all, including a Pentaghast very much in line for the Nevarran throne. The only thing that makes you any different is that you are the only one she was not _allowed_ to refuse, and that’s a sting that will take a long while to heal for someone like her.”

“I was already married,” Cailan says, and he is so, so quiet, gaze trained somewhere left of Ser Gilmore’s ear. “I didn’t want to be married to anyone else, ever. But I didn’t have a choice. So I’m sorry, because I ended up taking her choice away, too.”

Gil motions for Dane to move on after Lissy’s trail, and he starts to follow. Cailan may not have given a dismissal, but it’s clear the man needs to be alone and there is still a renegade Lissy to find. But still, as he passes the king, he quietly says, “That may be, but I’m not the one that needs to hear that.”

Cailan watches him go, because there’s not much else he can do.

—

 

Iona has been in a daze since they left the palace. Which is mildly unhelpful, given that they are searching for someone Elissa does not know. Presumably she will just have to find a group of children in the alienage and put Iona in front and take the girl who says ‘mama!’?

There is also the minor issue of directions. Denerim is a maze of alleyways, not a bit of reason involved in its planning and why in all of Thedas must every alley look _exactly the same_? A city as old as this must have some variation. It is almost boring as it is. The people are so self absorbed and the architecture so dull. If anything, this place is giving her a greater appreciation for the Kirkwall influence on Highever. At least that meant Highever has landmarks one can use for purposes of navigating the city.

But in time the tree comes into view and there is a single bridge between them and settling this once and for all.

Only, where in the alienage would one expect to find a group of children? Or, rather, one very particular, potentially magical child?

Highever has only sent one elven child to the Circle in her memory, and that was after a lengthy verbal battle between the Templar Order and Revered Mother Theodora regarding the young boy. Where had he been hiding?

It had been the rose garden, hadn’t it? The little one behind the Chantry. Small, quiet, secluded; a good place to hide. So then, where in Denerim’s alienage would one find such a place? Young mages must think alike, after all. Something in the certainty of knowing that they will be hated and hunted that makes them reach for the same survival instincts.

She takes Iona by the hand, leading them into what must be the only place in this city not baking in the constant sunlight. From this direction, the too-close buildings are the thickest forest, alleyways winding through as beaten down paths formed only by centuries of footsteps across the dirt. And then there is nothing but the tree: tall and grand, far healthier than anything growing in Denerim soil with Denerim water to feed upon. Its shadows touch everything, the darkness highlighting so many nooks and crannies to disappear into. Amethyne must be in one of them.

“She’s supposed to be with my grandmother,” Iona says, faintly.

“Is she prone to misbehaving?” Lissy asks, thinking of everything she knows of Iona. If this girl is anything at all like her mother, Amethyne is likely one very clever, very rambunctious child. “Or does she have someplace she likes to disappear to?”

“I… don’t know,” Iona’s face creases in a frown. Her grandmother lived in a secluded part of the alienage, right near the water. It was very possible her girl would have gone to play at the docks, hide in the spray of sea salt and rust. But Amethyne had always been a very social child, one that hadn’t liked being left alone. And, despite everything that had happened the _last_ time they’d been in the Alienage, despite time and tide, Iona knows the sound of her daughter’s laughter. “The orphanage, first, I think? She was there—before.”

She doesn’t really know why she’s allowing Lady Elissa to tug her along by the wrist, but she is. Trepidation, maybe, and there’s bile at the base of her throat. It’s too soon, it’s far too soon—but Amethyne, Amethyne, Amethyne, bright-eyed and smiling always. One of these days she’s going to do something that can’t quite be explained away, and then the Templars will come for her, just as they did for Iona’s brother so many years ago.

Iona will not survive the loss of her only child.

It dawns on her slowly that perhaps she should let Iona lead, but an orphanage is an orphanage is an orphanage. After the local Chantry, it’s usually the easiest building to identify in any given community. Just look for the gaggle of children, probably dirty and in clothes the wrong size. There are so many empty buildings here, too. Finding signs of life should be easy enough.

Only, everything looks the same.

“Left or right?” she says, looking between two buildings with children scattered about that look like no one’s house and certainly no place she would ever allow an orphanage.

“Left,” Iona tells her. There’s an odd thrum in her veins. “Close to the vhenadahl. At least, that’s where it was before I… left.”

“Does it often move around?”

And Iona smiles. “No. Not unless there’s been someone badly hurt. We’re a superstitious lot.”

“Not a bad habit.” Elissa ducks beneath a staircase and checks the knife in her boot. There’s something in the air here that doesn’t...it feels _wrong_ almost, the further into the alienage they go. “And if you’ve got a high incident of mages here, it probably limits how bad things can get,” she says, not thinking until a moment later exactly what that implies. “Do you have a high number of mages born here?”

“More than you might expect,” Iona says, grim.

Elissa starts to respond when she catches sight of the armored man up ahead. “How often do the Templars come through here?”

“They don’t. Ever,” unless someone’s found them a mage, and that’s rare. Which is perhaps the only blessing of the alienage. The walls are high, but they’re high as they are to keep outsiders outside, where they belong. The Alienage looks after its own.

“Then why is…” she trails off as the man shifts and reveals a very different armor than she was expecting. That’s not a Templar uniform, though it is just as clean and shiny. The skirt doesn’t help, either. He’s—wait, a moment. So that’s what his armor looks like clean. “Duncan?”

Iona is about to say something aloud, to pull her lady back into the shadow of the wall, because Lady Elissa is right, that _is_ Duncan, and if he finds out—Maker, if he finds out about Amethyne, what then? No, no, no, they can’t, he musn’t see them, he musn’t.

And then there’s a crash, a shriek, and the elves from before come striding out into the sun. The youngest one can’t be more than eighteen, and her hair is a long sheet of white-blonde down her back. The other two—Iona swallows hard—are both redheaded, the girl with her lips split in a smile, and the man… She knows that man. Oh, Maker, she knows him, he was Iain’s friend, before—before Iain went away. Saris, Solas, Soris? Something like that, that had been his name. What in Andraste’s name is he still doing here? And they’re headed…

Straight towards Ser Duncan.

Oh, Maker.

Iona stops breathing. “My lady,” she says, “please don’t move.”

“I can’t believe we have to do this,” Kally says. “Valendrian is the _worst_.”

“It’s just a walk, Kal.” Soris kicks a stone just to see it bounce along the path. He sighs heavily when it bounces off the the foot of a strange, very armed human. “And please do not give him any cause to yell at us anymore than he’s already planning to.”

“We have to go let everyone know that you’re not getting married,” Shianni reminds them. “That is still a thing we have to do.”

Kally groans. “Nola’s going to _kill_ me, she made that dress special.”

“You brought this on yourself,” Shianni says, pokes her in the side.

“You helped!” Kally bats her away. “And Soris, too!”

“Well, _yeah_.”

Soris stares out the corner of his eye at the two of them bickering as usual. “This was your fault, Ahni. Also, please pay attention to your surroundings. We have a visitor.”

Not a templar, obviously, so what manner of intruder is this one? He’s not dressed like any guard Soris has ever seen, and he’s seen a _lot_ of guards in his day. A mercenary, maybe? Or maybe that strange Orlesian woman is back and this is one of her chevaliers. All he knows is that armed humans and Shianni and Kallian is a combination that typically ends...well. Badly. Bloody too, usually. Just when he thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

The shine of sunlight off platemail gives Kally pause.

He’s a tall man, darkly-tanned or Rivaini-blooded or maybe both, and he’s looking right at her. His eyes are very dark, and there’s something ancient about them, the creases beneath them deep mountain crags. His whole face is like that, in fact, all slashes and hard edges. It’s an old face. A sad face. A _dangerous_ face.

If he wasn’t human, Kally would have liked him immensely.

As it is, he _is_ human, and he’s wearing shiny-bright platemail in the Alienage, and that is never a good sign. She sticks her chin out, belligerent to the last, and moves in front of Soris and Shianni without even really thinking about it. Her knives burn in her boots. If she needs to kill him, she’ll have to move fast; he holds himself the same way all good fighters do.

“Hello,” she says. “Who are you?”

He’d thought it odd that Valendrian wasn’t waiting for him when he arrived. The hahren knew he was coming, had arranged this meeting himself once news that there was a Warden in Denerim reached the alienage. Instead, he’s found the Queen-to-be hiding in the shadows with her lady-in-waiting and these three.

All he wanted was a nice cup of tea and a chat with an old friend.

The girl who spoke is clearly the youngest, but easily the most dangerous. A dual-weapons fighter, obviously. She carries her weight on the balls of her feet, standing with limbs loose and her whole body tensed. She’s small, probably light. A dangerous opponent indeed. An armed one too, if he’s not mistaken.

The young man with her is a fighter too. The stance is a familiar one of a soldier lacking weapons but still prepared to raise a shield in defense. He’s maybe not as experienced as the little blonde, but he’s likely got some promise if he instinctively moves into position like that.

The third is, like the man, redheaded. Likely family. She’s no fighter, at least not with weapons. She has the sturdy, delicate build of an archer, perhaps. A little training and she could go far with a fire like that in her eyes.

Good potential recruits, he notes. “I am not here to cause trouble.”

“You sure about that?” Kally says. He’s looked all three of them up and down, assessed them all with only a glance. “Because if you aren’t, I’d leave if I were you. We’re not fond of humans, here.”

Soris shifts just behind her, distributing his weight. He might be the most boring person alive, her cousin, but she knows that he always has her back. Shianni, on her other side, has her fists clenched.

No, they’re definitely not fond of humans, here.

These three could be trouble. Interesting trouble, at least. “Surely you are not going to instigate a fight without finding out why I am here. Not to mentioned that I am both armed and armored, while only one of you bears any weaponry. It would be a rather one-sided fight, I am afraid.”

“Maybe,” Kally says, eyes flashing, “but you’re in an Alienage. Do you really think it’ll only be us?”

“Kal, stop. Remember what’s waiting at home.” Soris can think of exactly three ways this can go: Kally gets them all killed, Kally starts a riot, the somewhat scary shem ends up dead. All of it results in Valendrian yelling at them _more_.

Kally turns to wrinkle her nose at him. Soris, why are you like this, she doesn’t say. “You ruin all my fun,” she says instead. “Fine. Welcome to the Alienage, human. Now please leave, there’s nothing for you here.”

“I was expected,” Duncan says, careful to keep his hands in full view of the spitfire. With any luck, the trio’s attention will stay fully on him and Lady Elissa and Iona can escape. He somewhat doubts Cailan’s guards and the general nobility would be pleased to learn their new Queen is dressed like a commoner in the city alienage. “I assure you I intend no harm to anyone here. I will not, however, be leaving.”

Worse, Iona could lose her place in the palace. More than anything else, Iona will be instrumental to the success of Lady Elissa’s reign, he suspects. It would be such a shame for so much potential to be lost so early.

She crosses her arms over her chest, and squints at him. He’s being far too accommodating, which means he’s probably hiding something. But if someone is expecting him…

“Valendrian would know,” Shianni says at her elbow. She’s idly picking at her nails the way she always does when she wants to be nonchalant. “If someone was coming to visit in armour, Uncle Valendrian would know about it.”

The _Uncle_ part is what clicks the little blonde’s identity into place. That vicious edge to her very being is so familiar now. Adaia is not someone easily forgotten. So this must be the child Valendrian spoke of. He sighs and tries to not think about the state of his luck in recent weeks. “Then perhaps you could take me to Valendrian. He is, after all, the one I am here to see.”

Kally tips her head, thinking about it. Shianni’s right, of course, Valendrian would know. Something twists in her gut, whispers _this is a bad idea_ , but it’s the best one they’ve got.

And if they need to make him disappear, it won’t be the first time.

“Come on, then,” she says, at long last. “Home is this way.”

Valendrian has seen many things in his long life. Some of them have been truly horrible. Some of them, like this, have simply been exhausting. The Commander of the Grey standing in full armor, weapons obvious, in the middle of the alienage with the three Tabris children surrounding him like the worst-planned ambush in the history of Thedas. He had been hoping to reach Duncan before anyone saw him, if only to avoid the questions. He raises a hand and says, “That will be unnecessary, Kallian. I am here.”

The hahren has aged so much in the few years since they last spoke. Things in Denerim must have gotten worse. Again. “Greetings, Hahren Valendrian. I see you did not inform the elves of my visit this time.”

“Not this time, no,” says Valendrian, looking pointedly at Shianni, “which was perhaps a bit unwise.”

Kally looks between Valendrian and the stranger. There’s an odd undercurrent between them, a kind of bitterness that she doesn’t have a name for. Resent, maybe? But no, not even that, it’s too tired for resent. She goes with bitterness because that seems to be closest.

“Uncle Valendrian,” she says, and Maker, it’s been a very long time since she’s called him that, though it rolls off her tongue as familiar as always, “is there anything you need?”

One of these days, his heart is going to fail from stress and upon it will be the words ‘Kallian Tabris killed me’. But such thoughts are so dark and now is not the time. Valendrian shakes his head instead. “I am only here to meet with Warden-Commander Duncan. How about a walk, old friend?”

“Warden-Commander?” Soris asks, “This shem is Grey Warden?”

Kally could back off. She knows she could. And she even _should_ , maybe, because Valendrian has that sour twist that his lips become when he’s reached previously-unknown levels of disapproval. But she can’t, she _can’t_ , because Grey Warden or not, this man is in her home. Kally opens her mouth to protest—

And Shianni cuts her off. “Soris, Kallian, let’s leave the adults to talk, hm?”

“But Ahni—”

“Kally,” she says, drops her voice to something soft and conciliatory, “let it go. It won’t help, it never does.”

“…Fine,” Kally huffs out and allows her cousin to catch her wrist to tug her into movement.

“You, too, old man,” Shianni says, and loops her other arm through Soris’. She takes her two wayward cousins and drags them unceremoniously away, deeper into the alienage. Soris’s eyes are huge, and Kally won’t say a word. The buildings are all the same, rickety wood and badly-hung doors, but they’re all calm here: it’s a known terror, the alienage, much better than anywhere else.

This is going to take some delicate handling.

Which is unfortunate, because Shianni is _terrible_ at delicate handling.

“Alright,” she says, forces them down on the back steps of the old hospice. “Talk.”

“Do you think he’s looking for recruits?” Soris muses. A Warden, an actual Grey Warden! And the Warden-Commander at that. The Warden-Commander has to be looking for recruits with what’s going on in the south.

He can just see it now: no more alienage, no more diseases, no more people treating them horribly just because they’re elves, having a sword and shield within reach at all times...it could be so _wonderful_.

“Who _cares_?” says Kally. She’s curled up into a little ball of barely-leashed rage and spite. “He’ll take someone away, that’s what always happens.”

“He could recruit us, you fool.” Soris says, kicking her feet. “We could fight and make money to send back to Cyrion and Valendrian. And we’d be out of Denerim for good. No more worrying about whether we’ll get to eat anytime within the next week or humans treating us like dirt or having to let thieves go when they steal our things because the guards won’t listen to us and we can’t do anything without violating that stupid no-arms rule. We’d be free, and it’d be better than running off to the Dalish. No marriage, too.”

“You’re an _idiot_ if you think being a Grey Warden will make things easier. There’re darkspawn in the south, everyone knows they’re gathering. You can’t help _anyone_ if you’re dead!” Kally fires back.

“Better, not easier. And it’s worth trying to do some good.”

“Better for who? The shems? They don’t care, anyway!”

Kal is on her feet now, standing so close he can see the faint red strands mixed in with the pale white and she is _furious_ and he does not care. “For us, for our family. So killing darkspawn helps the shems too. So what. It helps elves and dwarves as well.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Soris!” _Don’t yell, don’t yell, don’t yell,_ , Kally tells herself, searching for the well of calm that hides somewhere in her mind. _You’ve yelled at him enough today_. “What about when the darkspawn come here?! Who’ll keep us safe, then? The Wardens? I don’t think so! No, it’ll be us, just like always.”

Shianni can see that this is only going to get worse. “Stop it, you two. This doesn’t help anyone.”

“Ahni—!” both of them say, the same eldritch fire burning in their eyes. How anyone could think they were anything but related was beyond Shianni, they were exactly the same. Kallian was just louder about her rebellion.

“Fighting doesn’t _help_ ,” she tells them. “And if I have to break you two up, I will, don’t think I—”

A _scream_ rends the air apart.

“What was that?” Kally whispers. Her eyes are suddenly so wide. The echoes of it bounce of the walls, shattering over and over again against the walls until it’s nothing at all. The last time Kally remembers hearing a screaming like that, her mother—her mother _died_.

“I don’t know,” Shianni whispers in reply.

The thing about screaming in the Alienage is that it’s often best to pretend it’s not happening. But Kally doesn’t know how to leave well enough alone, and, honestly, neither does Shianni. Soris, neither, if only because he can’t let either of them out of his sight.

“We have to go. Right now, I mean it,” Kally says. Her hands are shaking. “That sounded like Nola.”

“Someone’s going to end up dead today, aren’t they?” Someone always ends up dead when there’s screaming in the alienage, it seems. Just once, it’d be nice if screaming meant something good.

“Probably,” Kally says. She doesn’t sound happy about it.

Elissa has Iona _almost_ out of the main area of the alienage when the screaming starts. The dagger is out of her boot and in her hand so fast she isn’t quite she actually drew it with Iona at her back and oh Maker, that’s a nobleman in the alienage.

Where did Duncan go when she needs him?

“Iona, step back. We need to find Amethyne quickly if we’re to be back by nightfall,” she says, only to find silence in response. “Iona? Are you hurt?”

Iona is staring at the man like he’s death itself come for them all. Elissa remembers the conversation from this morning and the dagger in her hand is flipped so she’s holding it by the blade. The wind is a little strong this morning, and the knife is a bit big for throwing, but if she could just get the angle right—

Except Iona’s small hand is tight around the fabric at the small of her back, dragging them both deeper into the alleyway, far from where the beast is on the prowl. “Iona, he needs to die,” she says, soft and gentle, because she knows Iona is _not_ fine right now. They need to find Amethyne as quickly as possible and get back to the palace.

Andraste, she should have brought Dane. He could have tracked Iona’s scent to the girl long before now. And where is Duncan? That scream was loud enough it must have echoed throughout the alienage; surely he heard it.

None of this is good. There is exactly one of her and she cannot leave Iona alone in this state of wide-eyed, memory-driven fear. For that nobleman, there is one of him and three others circling like vultures around whatever prey he’s found. She can kill them easily, but that would draw attention and attention is bad.

And killing them without drawing attention, while possible, would likely do nothing more than bring the city guard down on the alienage.

That would be bad.

That would be _very_ bad. The city guard in Denerim seems to be less than enthusiastic to aid the elves. A nobleman assaulting alienage women more than once has likely done this enough times to generate more than a few complaints. He would have been stopped by now if the guard cared, which means that any complaint from the elves likely results in action against them.

Lissy breathes out, trying to bring the jittery _kill him_ nerves under control. She flips the dagger back into a normal position before sliding it into the sheath in her boot. This is just one more thing she and Cailan are going to have to have A Talk about, it seems, and she will have to step up efforts to have Gil placed in charge of the guardsmen until a new captain can be trained. None of this can be allowed to continue.

Last time they were here, that redheaded elf man referred to this cretin as an arl’s son. Presumably that means the Arl of Denerim. So then, this is the notorious Vaughan Kendalls, about whom not even Eleanor Cousland, could find a polite word about.

 _Brilliant_.

She turns and pushes Iona fully back into the alley, away from where Kendalls might catch sight of them. There is a child back here, a little reddish-blonde thing standing tall and straight—and staring right at them with blue-grey eyes she knows quite well. “Uh, Iona? I think you might want to turn around,” she says.

Moving is difficult. She can’t breathe. But her lady—her lady wants her to turn around—

“Mama!”

“Oh, Maker,” Iona breathes. “ _Amethyne_ , beloved, come here.”

Her daughter is a tiny ball of grace and light and she _throws_ herself on Iona. The world’s tilted on its axis, the Maker has returned; there is _nothing_ in the universe that could make this better, nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Iona holds Amethyne for a very long time with her eyes closed, simply breathing her in. “I am never,” she says into the girl’s hair, “taking my eyes off of you again. I’m so sorry, my love, I never should have left you this long. Here, let me look at you.”

She takes stock like this: eyes, nose, mouth, hair, height, weight, clothes.

Eyes, clear. Nose, still pointed. Mouth, chapped lips, silly girl hasn’t been using her balm. Hair, too long and badly braided. Height, just the same. Weight, far too thin. Clothes…

“Have you been rolling in muck?”

“No. Missed you, mama,” Amethyne says, and her voice is so small.

“I missed you, too, so much,” Iona tells her as she smooths her hands over the girl’s hair. She’s eight, and should be far too big to be picked up, but Iona manages it without batting an eye. Amethyne _clings_ , and there’s something about the way that she does it, like she might die if she lets go. Privately, Iona thinks they both might die if she does. She tucks her daughter’s face into the crook of her neck. “Hush, now, hush, I’ll kiss all the hurts better. We’re going somewhere safe, I promise.”

“I saw you die,” Amethyne whispers. “I saw it. It weren’t a dream, mama, I saw it.”

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m not going to die, I’m not,” Iona whispers back, humming nonsense and rocking her slip of a girl a little to calm her some (and if it calms Iona herself as well, that’s just a bonus). Amethyne’s not crying, but that might not last long; that awful man or not, Iona is going to take her daughter somewhere safe, and she’ll kill anyone who tries to get in her way.

She has entirely forgotten Lady Elissa. She swallows. “Oh, my lady—”

Elissa smiles, gentle and trying to not show any sign of danger because Iona is talking and smiling and _happy_ and there is no way she’s going to destroy that willingly. So she just smiles and politely as she can, says “Perhaps we should begin moving towards somewhere more…” she trails off because _how_ exactly is she supposed to say that they need to get out of here as quickly as possible because the situation outside the alley seems to be deteriorating faster than can safe.

They’ll be lucky if the alienage doesn’t burn tonight at this rate. Vaughan Kendalls is a particular brand of awful, it seems. The number of elf women, some girls, really, not much older than Amethyne that his lackeys have rounded up is sickening. Knowing what he shall do to them is even worse.

He cannot be allowed to find them.

“Hello, Your Majesty,” Amethyne says. “Thank you for keeping my mama alive.”

Oh, so this is what Iona meant about the girl being odd. “Just Lissy will be fine. It’s rather been the other way around, as well. She’s saved me more than I’ve saved her.”

“No,” Amethyne shakes her head violently, braids swinging around her face. “She’d be dead without you. I saw it. An’ don’t worry, mama, we’re gonna be fine. Promise.”

Iona shoots a glance at Lady Elissa. Well, she doesn’t look _too_ upset by Amethyne’s… _strangeness_ , but her daughter is right. She thinks of steel, cold and hard, and pours the image of it into her spine.

“Whenever you’re ready to go, my lady, so am I,” she says, and her grip on her daughter tightens.

“Now, please,” Elissa says, thinking _ten minutes ago would have been better_.

“Of course,” says Iona. “Amethyne, love, we must be very quiet.”

Amethyne nods as seriously as an eight year old can, her face a solemn teardrop against the Alienage’s dirt. Iona tucks her head back into the crook of her neck, murmurs a very soft _keep your eyes closed, love_ , and then she looks to Lady Elissa.

There is no way for them to step out of the alley without drawing attention. Elissa knows that deep her bones, and knows the single knife in boot will not be enough to fight off all of the men and keep the elves safe. There is no way to guarantee Iona and Amethyne’s safety until the situation out there is resolved.

 _Where is Duncan_? Another fighter would make this so much better. So, so much better. Not to mention Duncan’s general... _Duncan-_ ness. The man is intimidating even when he’s in a good mood.

Without him or Gil or even Dane—bile rises up at the back of her throat, bitter and burning. She’s going to have to stand by and let this continue, let that vile man take those elves and horrible things. Worse yet is the cold iron certainty that some of those elves will not survive the night if he takes them.

“I’m so sorry, Iona,” she says, and she means it for everything: for not staying to find Amethyne that first time they were here, for not killing Vaughan first chance she had, for not getting them out of here sooner.

“No, my lady,” Iona says. She touches her lips to her daughter’s head. “There is nothing to be sorry for.”

 

—

 

“Oh,” Kally says, looking the intruder up and down. “ _You_.”

“Me,” he says, lips pulling back into a sneer. “You’re the bitch that knocked me out.”

“Yeah,” she nods, nods brightly at him. “I am. You going to let her go, or do I have to make you?”

She can hear Soris groaning behind her. He’s going to scold, later, she can already tell, but she doesn’t _care_ because this noble bastard’s got Nola’s hair in his fist, and she’s on her knees with tears in her eyes. Her dress is getting ruined, and Kally knows, Kally _knows_ how long she spent on it.

She is, very cheerfully, going to cut his head off.

“Kallian, I’m fine,” Nola says. “Really, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not,” Kally says.

Shianni is on her left, her fingers curled into the back of Kally’s dress, like that’ll really be able to stop her. “Kally,” she whispers, fear threaded through her voice, “Kally, there are guards.”

“I don’t care,” Kally says, teeth bright in the setting sun. “I don’t _care_! Let her go, I swear to the Maker if you don’t—”

He has the audacity to throw his head back and _laugh_. “What will you do, knife-ears? Cry?”

“I’ll kill you,” she says, and it’s almost pleasant. “I will kill you dead.”

And she’s never meant anything more in her entire life. Because this is it, this is enough, this is the breaking point. This is the end, for Kally, because she knows, suddenly, that if she doesn’t do something now nothing is _ever_ going to change, and this man will continue to come her to home and burn it to ash. And fine, _fine_ , if he wants to burn, Kally will burn. She’ll light the Maker-forsaken _match_ , and she will dance on his blackened bones or die trying.

Soris is very still, if only because Kally is a kind of trembling nervousness like she’s battle given mortal form, and Shianni is very obviously scared. The alienage will burn tonight, though whether it is because Vaughan starts the fire or Kallian burns it all with the fire beneath her skin or very simply because the guards finally decide the alienage is more trouble than it’s worth remains to be seen.

“Ah—” he starts but can’t finish because _no_ he is not giving that name to the like of Vaughan Kendalls and so he starts anew with “Cousin, help.”

Shianni is the diplomatic one. Words are weapons for her, vicious, sharp things that can bring even Kallian to her knees with a need for mercy. If anyone can get them out of this it is—

But that’s not it, is it? The fear is curling in his stomach, tearing at all his insides. There is no way for this to end peacefully, safely. There is a weakness in his body now, and exhaustion that only comes from uncertain defeat. Someone is going to die tonight. More than one someone, probably.

He rather thinks he might be sick.

“Kally,” Shianni says again, “Kally, please. The guards. Think of the children, the orphanage is right there. We can’t—not here, Kal, not now. Please. Please, don’t.”

Kally looks at her, looks at the way she’s shaking. Because the thing is, Shianni doesn’t shake, not ever. Ahni is a cliff in a storm, a mountain, something immovable and grown deep into the earth. Her cousin isn’t meant to tremble, and she’s trembling now, trembling so hard Kally thinks she might shake herself to pieces if she keeps it up.

And, Maker, she can’t do this to Ahni.

“If you leave,” Kally says, slowly, “and you leave _now_ , I won’t kill you in your sleep.”

“No,” the noble says, mouth nothing but a cruel twist across his face. “I think not. It’s been some time since I’ve had any fun, and I think you’d do well to have some as well. Guards!”

 _Tits_ , Kally thinks, bitterly. She’s never going to get her dagger up fast enough, she’s reaching down and down and everything is slow and syrupy-thick like she’s moving through molasses—and then she takes a mace to the temple. She stumbles, stunned, dark spots dancing in her eyes. She catches sight of the noble’s hair, bronze-red. She thinks of blood and fire.

_Tits!_

The last thing Kally sees before her vision goes: Nola’s horror-stricken face, streaked with dirt and tears.

—

Soris opens his eyes to the receding white of blinding pain. Blinking once, twice, and then he’s awake to see the flicker of a lantern and the fading gold of sundown. He’s...in the street? Why is he in the street? _Maker_ , what happened? There’s a pain in his head like Kallian’s hit him with a frying pan again, and a cotton dryness at the back of his throat.

Did he go drinking with Ahni and Kally again?

No, not right. This isn’t alcohol he doesn’t think, and neither of his cousins would leave him in the street at sundown when all the thieves and worse are starting to crawl out of their dens.

And then the panic starts to set in because _where are his cousins_? A million and one things could have happened—how long has he been out? Why can’t he remember anything before—before _Vaughan Kendalls_.

Small hands are at his shoulder, pushing him down as a soft voice is telling him to take it easy, he took a mace to the head, he...“I took a what?”

“A mace to the head,” Iona says again. She touches his forehead very gently, tries to keep herself from pulling his eyes open to check his pupils. “Can you sit up? If you can’t, it’s alright, don’t move if it hurts.”

“I need to find my cousins,” says Soris, thinking of all the awful things that can happen because they are both gone which means Vaughan has them both and Andraste help them all the entire city is going to _burn_ if something isn’t done immediately. “Vau—Vaughan Kendalls took them. He took all of them.”

Elissa reaches down to help him up. “We know. We saw. Will you be alright?”

“You’re human?” Humans in the alienage is bad but this one has—he blinks, looking at the elf woman still sitting on the ground, “Do I know you?”

“I think you knew my brother,” Iona says. “Iain? It was… a long time ago. Stop moving, you’ll hurt yourself!”

Iain? Iain, yes. Templars, magic, so much crying. “Iona, right? What are you doing here? Wait, no, I need to get to Ahni and Kally before someone dies.”

“No one’s going to die,” Iona tells him, very softly. Thinking of her brother still hurts, but it’s a muted kind of hurt, far in the distance in the face of this latest offense against the Alienage’s person. She can’t think about it too hard, else she’ll start to scream. Amethyne’s got her hands over her eyes, even now. “Are you sure your head’s alright? I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“Soris,” he answers without thinking, looking around the alienage for _someone_ who might be able to help. “I need to find Valendrian.”

Elissa sighs and pulls the dagger from her boot, holding it out to the elf. It would better if she went herself, but that would likely only make the situation worse. Something has ot be done. Blight upon the guards, for none are likely loyal enough to her to do as she asks and given that some were _complicit_ in this...oh, she and Cailan are going to have to have A Talk when she gets back to the palace. “Soris, I am Elissa. A pleasure to meet you, though not the best circumstances. If you would please take this, I suspect it will be of great help to you.”

“A knife?”

“Amaranthine guardsman’s dagger, actually. Standard issue,” she says. “It’s very sharp and of good weight and balance. That blonde is a dual-weapons fighter, isn’t she? If you can get this to her, it will do some good.”

“My lady!” Iona says sharply. “Please! He’s just been hit in the head, he shouldn’t be moving!”

“He’s determined to do something and we cannot help him directly,” she says, looking down at where Iona is still sitting on the ground, bright eyes wide with a mix of horror and disappointment. “Do you think you can fight, Soris?”

He blinks. What on earth is a human doing in Denerim with an Amaranthine...oh no. Oh _Maker no_. Elissa. He knows that name; was talking about her just this morning and Iain’s family did work for a Bann’s family located not far from Highever. Vaughan Kendalls has his family and many more, and the Queen-to-be is standing in the Denerim Alienage like she belongs there. “How?”

“How do you fight?” Elissa asks. “I suspect you know how to fight, if only the basics. It won’t do to send you alone. Is there someone who can help you?”

“Someone’s coming,” Amethyne says, eyes still hidden.

“Someone helpful or someone bad?” Elissa looks back at the girl, waiting for clarification.

Amethyne’s little face scrunches up for a moment, like she’s thinking really hard about it. “A… puppy?” she says, almost a question, and then, “a _puppy_! Puppies!”

... _puppies_? Elissa is almost about to ask more questions of the girl when a very familiar bark echoes through the alienage and blur of brown heads straight to them. “Dane, good boy!” If Dane is here, then, yes, that’s Gil running towards them. Good. Gil can help Soris. She gives him her best smile. “I need you to go with this man to the Arl of Denerim’s estate to save a group of elven women and girls the good Arl’s son just kidnapped.”

Gil skids to a stop and looks at Iona. “Is she serious?”

“I wish she wasn’t,” Iona says quietly. Clearly, Soris is going to go whether she’d like him to or not, even though it is entirely not advisable and if he dies he best not come back to haunt her. She wraps her arms around Amethyne and pulls her down into her lap. It’s been a very hard day.

“He has a higher chance of surviving if Gil is with him,” Elissa says, plainly. “Gil, this is Soris. Soris, this is Ser Gilmore, captain of the soon-to-be queensguard. Gil, I think this one knows how to handle a sword and shield. One of the women taken knows how to handle dual-weapons, so your dagger will probably be best for her.”

“Lissy, stop.” Gil holds up a hand. “Start from the beginning.”

“Vaughan Kendalls is a horrible man who just kidnapped a group of elven women and girls with the aid of several other young noblemen and quite a few guards. Soris here and one of the women were struck by maces and knocked unconscious,” she speaks slowly, clearly, “and Soris is determined to go to the Arl’s estate to rescue them. In his current condition and even alone and uninjured, this is a suicidal idea. Please go with him to help. Tell the guards exactly who you are and that you are there on my orders. If any of them choose to fight, you have my permission to kill them.”

Right, well. Lissy has always been direct. “Understood. And Dane?”

“Will come with us,” she says. “If you’re here, I gather Cailan has finally decided to say something about my absence. Iona, if you’re ready?”

“Of course, my lady,” Iona murmurs, and gathers Amethyne up. “Shall we?”

Soris has no idea what has just happened. He watches the women and girl leave the with the dog and he’s left alone with the guard, who simply sets a heavy hand on his shoulder and asks if he’s ready to go.

—

Kallian wakes to the most infinitely painful headache she has ever had the misfortune of encountering. It’s a pounding hot mess in between her temples, like someone’s struck a gong over and over and over and not even had the decency to give her a chance to get her skull out of the way. It is terrible. She hates everything and everyone.

“ _Ow_ ,” she says.

“Moron,” comes a voice through the pain, and then there are cool hands against her forehead. “When are you going to learn, Kally?”

“Never,” she says, as the hands meet wrists then arms then shoulders, and Nola’s face materializes out of the gloom. “What happened? Where are we?”

“The Kendalls estate,” Nola says.

“Andraste’s left tit,” Kally mutters. “We need to get out of here, where’s Ahni, I’m surprised she let me alone—”

“Kally, they took her,” Nola says.

“ _What_ ,” Kally says, but it’s not a question.

“They took her,” Nola repeats. Her throat works but it doesn’t work, like she’s chewing on glass and the insides of her mouth are all cut up, twisting jagged around the pain. “I don’t know, I don’t know where, but they did, they took her first.”

“Not me?”

“You weren’t awake,” Nola says, swallows again. “They said—said you wouldn’t be as much fun if they couldn’t—couldn’t hear you scream.”

There are a lot of things Kally wants to say, right then, and none of them are very kind. In fact, they’re all very rude and twice as homicidal, but that won’t help anyone. She’s without weapons, without armor, without help.

This is going to be ugly, probably.

“Alright,” Kally exhales. The lockpicks sewn into her cuffs haven’t been ripped away; stupid of them, but they’re human, so she’s not all that surprised. “This is my fault, I’m such an ass, hit me next time I do something like this. Help? I don’t know if I can get up.”

Even with Nola’s help, Kally’s knees are unsteady. A fresh wave of pain rolls over her, and her head spins. For half a second, she’s convinced she’s going to be sick everywhere. But she isn’t, though her stomach heaves.

 _Buck up, Tabris_ , she tells herself sternly. _You’ve had worse than a mace to the head, and you have a job to do_.

There are five women in the room, if Kally counts herself. Five. And Shianni—Shianni’s already gone. Nola, pale-faced and dark-haired; Nessa, sitting with her back against the wall and her face against her knees; Salli, mouth set furious and red; and Elva, who is so terrible and still doesn’t deserve this. No one deserves this.

Maker, she’s going to set this place alight.

Kally presses a hand against the wall, trying to steady her breathing. Nola keeps a hand on her shoulder; Kally would shrug it off, but right now they both need the comfort more than she needs the dignity. “Right, has anyone tried the door?”

“It’s locked, stupid,” Elva says.

Kally ignores her, for both their sakes.

There are a pile of crates in the opposite corner, and looking through them is better than pacing back and forth like a caged animal. She’s going to have to ease her four companions into the idea of breaking out, because even though Nola will follow her, the others won’t. Much as Kally dislikes Elva, she’s not going to leave any one of them here, not now, not ever.

There’s a mace in one of the crates, dull grey iron, and the irony is bitter on her tongue.

“What are you doing?” one of the girls asks as she strides across the room, mace in hand, to go pick at the lock.

“Picking the lock,” Kally says, “and then leaving.”

“That’ll only make it worse!”

The lock clicks open beneath her fingers, and vicious glee races through her. Maker, she is never going to be able to thank her dead mother enough. Hand on the knob, she looks over her shoulder at the four of them. They’re all quiet as mice, watching her with great big empty eyes. “I don’t care. Stay here if you want, but I’m not. I need to find Shianni.”

And then Kallian throws open the door, and hits the man guarding the door in the face.

It is _entirely_ satisfying.

“Kally?!?” Soris almost drops the shield when his cousin bursts out of the door, mace in hand and promptly cuts down the guard. There is blood and Maker knows what else all over him, weapons in hand, and Kally just…of course she found a way out. It’s Kallian. Of course she has a mace. “Kally, are you okay? Where’s Shianni?”

“I don’t know where she is, I’m going to find her. Do you have a blade? This thing is ungainly,” Kally says, avoiding the question entirely. No, she’s not alright, and she won’t be alright until her cousin is behind her and she’s got Vaughan’s head on a pike. Laws or no laws, she is going to kill him. Maker take her, she really is. “And who’s the shem?”

Gil nods grimly to the blonde. Obviously this is the dual-weapons fighter Lissy mentioned. The other elves look scared, but unharmed. Still, though, probably best to let Soris take the lead here as much as possible. “I am Ser Gilmore. Lady Elissa sent me to help.”

“He’s good, Kal,” Soris says, holding out the dagger. “Do you think you can use this? I’ll trade you for the mace.”

“Can I ever,” Kally says fervently. The weapon exchange is quick and painless. She very nearly cries about the dagger; it’s a work of art, and when she tests the blade it is very, very sharp. Soris, too, seems a little less out of his depth. He really has no idea what to do with daggers, it is a tragedy.

Soris sighs, relieved to be holding a weapon he actually sort of knows how to use. Maces are an odd breed of weaponry. Heavy at one end but rather light otherwise, much like axes. It’s not as nice as a sword, but it’ll do. “We should get going. Ser Gilmore, any idea which direction we should go in?”

“If this manor is built like most others, then we’re likely on the other side of the estate from where your cousin is likely being kept,” he says, “and the others are free to leave. The path behind us is clear for now.”

“There are laws about this kind of thing,” Kally says. “Here’s to surviving the night. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Gil says. Sometimes he forgets Highever doesn’t always share laws with the rest of the land, and elven rights tend to be the biggest discrepancy, he’s noticed. It’s a holdover from their time as a city-state to avoid the Orlesians and it can be so confusing to keep track. “What laws are you referring to?”

“The ones where it’s illegal to kill a human in defense of an elf,” Kally grins like an imp. “Sorry, Gil, hope you don’t like living too much.”

Well, that has Val Royeaux written _all over_ it. Lissy is going to be furious. “We have friends in high places tonight. If we move fast, all will end well.”

“You might,” Kally tilts her head. “But _we_ don’t. Can we go? If I’m going to be dead tomorrow, I’d like to earn it.”

“Head towards the other side of the estate,” Gil says. He’s about to offer to lead the other women to safety when he remembers exactly why they’re here. “Actually, I shall come with you. My orders are to first inform the guards that I am here on Lady Elissa’s orders and that they are to stand down. It’s only if they attack that I can kill them. And the others really should be leaving as quickly as possible.”

Soris bumps Kally with the shield and says “He’s good, Kal. So’s Lady Elissa. Now let’s get going.”

Kally shrugs. Three swords are better than two, always, and she’s not stupid enough to turn away help. Well, she’s stupid enough to turn away help _some_ of the time, but not right now. Shianni’s life is at stake, and there is nothing Kally is willing to risk for that, even if it’s her pride. Her jaw goes tight, and she breathes in twice before jerking her head in the direction the Ser had pointed towards, before. She doesn’t really have the words, right now. If Shianni is hurt, she thinks she may never have the words again.

The Arl of Denerim’s manor is hideous. She barely registers it, far more intent on putting one foot in front of the other. Her grip on her dagger is a tenuous thing, the skin of her palm clammy. Sweat pools at the base of her spine.

None of this matters one iota.

Later, Kally will remember the race through the estate in snapshots, one flash of memory for every door Shianni wasn’t behind. She won’t remember the startled servants, or the guards she left in pieces behind her, or the look on Soris’ face when she doesn’t flinch while cutting a man’s throat. She won’t remember the colour of the carpet, or the valuables she didn’t filch, or anything at all, really.

Here is what she will remember:

Shianni on the floor, shaking, skirt all wrong. Vaughan standing above her, reaching down, his lackeys smirking. The lamp burning orange in the corner. The dagger in her hand, and the strange detachment with which she realizes it would take nothing at all to let it fly across the room and embed itself in his spine. The dagger in her hand, and the knowledge of how it feels to slide it in between a person’s ribs. The dagger in her hand, and an ocean of blood sticky against her fingers. The dagger in her hand, and rage, and sorrow.

 _I’m sorry, Ahni. I let this happen_ , Kally doesn’t say.

“May the Maker have mercy, Vaughan,” is what Kally says instead, “because I won’t.”

And she attacks.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: disclaimed  
> dedication: to a startling lack of sleep, one very large family tree, and these last golden days spent in sunshine.  
> notes: we're real people, probably.


	4. you bleed just to know you're alive

The door is unlocked. Elissa looks around the empty hall and upon seeing not a soul, no sign of ambush or other attack, decides that this is either the best thing or the worst thing to happen since arriving in Denerim. The door to the Queen’s Wing is unlocked, when the key has only just been passed to her after spending the day safely on a shimmering silver chain around Iona’s neck.

How foolish to think that this was the only key.

She exchanges a look with Iona, who moves closer to Amethyne, the little girl sitting astride Dane as if he were a pony. The little girl is staring at her with wide, knowing eyes, as if she is fully aware of what lies beyond this unassuming white door.

Might as well get this over with, she thinks before pushing the door open and crossing the threshold. Sure enough, Cailan is seated at the windowsill, staring pensively out at the palace grounds. She stops at the threshold, struck not by the knowing that there is to be a fight here, but by the mere fact that he is… beautiful, in an odd way. The constant sunny energy is nowhere to be found. For once he is still, quiet. She’d say serene, almost, if not for the obvious tension across his shoulders.

She nods to Dane, who takes off towards Iona’s room with Amethyne. After a moment, Iona herself follows, one last look cast back at Elissa before she closes her daughter and herself off from the two humans.

And then they are alone.

Where to start? Perhaps the reason she has been leaving the palace? No, not that. Amethyne will be simple to explain and perhaps not needed at all. Getting to know the city should be blindingly obvious. Then the laws? Iona spent the trip back very quietly detailing a set of laws that can _only_ be Orlesian in origin. The Theirin line must have been quite distracted by other things to have missed that they had holdovers from the occupation.

At least, she hopes. Between the two of them seems to be a chasm filled with the events and impressions of the last week: the fall of Highever, the loss of Anora, the Blight, Gil, the elves, her desire to be anywhere else, that she must be absolutely _nothing_ like what Eamon told him she was, and the one singular fact that she does not have to be here.

It would be easier to reclaim Highever and deal with Howe from here, yes, but there is another way. Highever has close ties to the Free Marches, close enough she could go there and gather an army to march on Highever and Rendon Howe.

And that is by far the most tempting option right now.

Because she doesn’t think she can do this. She cannot have a man who either has no idea what’s going on in his own city telling her what to do, or worse, she _cannot_ have a man who is fully aware of what is happening and does not care enough to stop it anywhere near her person. The Marches will be difficult, but at least there are distant relations—family, after a fashion—who are there and can aid her. Friends aplenty, too, though the loss of the Amells will dent her ability to call in favors.

It’s just that… right now she is so very tired. Tired and angry, which makes the exhaustion worse. Anger curls around her spine, burns along her ribs until her heart itself is afire. The dead weight in her limbs, tired even in the bone, only grows worse the more she thinks about things because the more she thinks about things, the colder the fury burns.

“Did you need something?” she asks, sharper than intended.

Cailan looks up. He’d been thinking—well, it didn’t really matter what he’d been thinking. Elissa’s back, and she’s unharmed, and _that’s_ really what matters, isn’t it? She’s got an expression on her face that he’s not seen before, all flint and tinder about to light, but…

“No,” he says, softly, without energy, and smiles with a kind of exhaustion tucked into the corners. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Alright? Did he really just… breathe, Liss. Remember Nan yelling at everyone, the smell of fresh baked pasties on the holidays. She folds her arms across her chest and says “That’s it? No questions?” No questions? No argument? No _don’t do this anymore_? She must be dreaming.

“No,” Cailan says again. He’s thought about it, of course, and he could. He could be like that, could order her to not leave again for her own safety, and it would be entirely warranted. Denerim hasn’t been safe for a very long time. But he’s never been like that, never been hard and controlling and distant. That was his father, and Cailan had always sworn he would never be his father. “I just wanted to say—sorry. That’s all.”

“Sorry for what, exactly?” Elissa knows she’s being harsh, knows he’s trying to be understanding but right now she needs something very different. She continues, “Sorry for my being here at all, or sorry because I saw what’s happening in the alienage?”

His brow furrows. What? What’s happening in the Alienage? What did Kendalls do _now_ , Maker, were the guard really so useless—and then he realizes that she’s trembling with pent-up rage, and oh, _oh_ , she’s looking for a fight.

Maker, Cailan hates fighting.

And Elissa, right now she needs a fight more than anything else.

And so Cailan hitches up the fakely pleasant sneer he’d learned a long time ago watching Anora deal with nobles, and he says “Sorry that I thought this would be a good idea at all.”

He is probably going to get hit in the face for this.

Elissa weighs her options: slap him and potentially end this disaster before it can begin, or leave and start packing. Instead, she simply says “You’re about as good at this as my brother. Do you even realize there are still Orlesian laws being enforced within your country?”

Fight or not, _what_? And there’s an insult in there, a very backhanded one at that, but he’s not about to go into that because brothers are always going to be a sensitive topic.

“Orlesian laws?” he asks instead, briefly shocked to full coherency. “What?”

Deep breath, Elissa. Don’t resort to regicide even if he is unarmored and completely defenseless. “It is against the law for elves to bear arms,” she says, careful and measured, “and it is also against the king’s law to kill a human in defense of an elf. I am currently in violation of both, by the way, given that I armed at least two elves and gave Ser Gilmore leave to kill Arl Kendalls’s men if they did not stand down.”

“Well, that’s not right,” Cailan says, frowning. “I thought we changed that.”

“Apparently you didn’t.” Elissa can hear Nan and Mother both chiding _Elissa, do not speak to him that way, you will damage Highever’s standing_ but she just can’t bring herself to care. So she draws herself up to stand with her spine sword straight and says “Clearly Fereldan never learned the Kirkwall Rule. If you overthrow a tyrant, regime, or other form of government, always look over every law thrice to ensure nothing unpleasant has been left behind.

“Not to mention that the state of the city guard is absolutely deplorable. Not only do their patrols seem to end at the alienage gates, but they are complicit if not actively engaging in the roundup of elven women for the amusement of some little flea who thinks he’s important.”

And this is when Cailan realizes that maybe he should ask her just _what_ on the Maker’s green earth happened, because he has a sudden feeling that they’re on two very different pages, and that it’s probably making the story impossible to understand.

“Lady Elissa…“ he says, slowly, “would you care to tell me what happened, from the beginning? I’m missing something, here.”

Do not kill the king, Elissa. Do not kill the king. That would be Very Bad.

“Iona has a daughter,” she starts, slow and with every intention to remain as diplomatic as possible, “and it seemed silly to have mother and daughter so close and so far apart, as well as the fact that Iona could certainly use some help around here, so I decided to bring the girl here for training as a lady-in-waiting. As we headed towards the alienage to retrieve her, Iona was showing me around the city, as she is native.

“I recognize that the Arl of Denerim likely wields considerable power in this city. However, his son is terrorizing the alienage and tonight took seven young women, some barely older than girls, as playthings for him and his… _associates_. Given the reactions of the elves who tried to stop it and were themselves attacked, I would guess this has something to do with the frequent riots.”

Elissa takes a deep breath, finishing, “This is not the first time Vaughan Kendalls has assaulted elven women and should he survive the night, I doubt it will be the last. My question to you is why this has been allowed to continue in a city housing the king himself.”

No, no, that can’t be right. They had, they had sent orders to guard to keep that man out of the Alienage, they had talked themselves in circles about it for days, _how to keep Vaughan Kendalls from hurting anyone else_ , and when they’d finally drafted the orders to the guard, he’d kept a copy, it’s sitting in his desk—

So no, this can’t be right.

It can’t be.

But Elissa won’t believe that, not unless she sees them herself.

“I—I have something to show you,” Cailan says. “In my office. Will you come with me?”

Interesting. He’s not nervous, per se, but not okay, either. Elissa can see the tension is still there, still drawing lines of worry around his mouth. The look in his eye too—something is not right. So she nods and steps aside. “Lead the way.”

It’s not a long walk from the Queen’s Wing to Cailan’s office. On the same floor, even, albeit at different ends of the building. Elissa is hard-eyed and silent at his side, her jaw clenched down and her teeth ground together. There’s fury in every line of her, and Andraste’s blood if he doesn’t want to smooth it away. But now isn’t the time; she doesn’t _trust_ him, she thinks he’d be—party to this, Maker, how could she think that, doesn’t she know him at all?

No, Cailan thinks, that’s part of the problem. They don’t know each other at all, not even a little bit. She’s such a dangerous thing, bound in steel and blood, and there’s nothing in the world that could leash her. But she doesn’t know that he likes Mabari, and quiet mornings, and hard-boiled eggs, because really he’s a simple person, and he’d much rather not have to deal with any of this. He’d much rather not be the King. But he is and he does, so all of this is moot.

But Maker, he wants to know her.

He wants to know her more than anything else.

The door to his office is unlocked, because of course it is: Chamberlain probably knew they were coming. Cailan won’t be surprised if there is an entire tea tray waiting for them, still hot.

And he’s not wrong. The tea is steaming.

Cailan smiles, wry.

One of these days, he’s going to catch Chamberlain in the act. _One day_.

Cailan has stopped just inside the office. Elissa leans over to look around him at the tea set out for two on the desk. It’s a lovely porcelain set and that’s a very, very familiar green crest upon the pot. “Why is there tea?” she asks, “How is there tea at this hour?”

“Chamberlain,” Cailan says, shrugs, and he’s slid around the desk to open the drawer with the false bottom. “I don’t ask questions, anymore, it’s not worth it. Here, this is what I wanted to show you.”

They’re white and crisp in his hands, same as they were the day they were ordered. He holds them out, waits for her to take them from his grip. It seems like a long time; there’s so much distance between them.

The seal of the King of Fereldan is visible from across the room. Elissa crosses quickly to take the papers. Orders, actually. Orders from the office of the king himself to the City Guard to, at all costs, keep Vaughan Kendalls as far away from the alienage as possible. The ink is still clear and dark as night, words unmistakable from beginning to end. At the bottom, Cailan’s seal appears again beside that of the city guard, his signature a graceful flourish to end the document.

“It seems we have a problem with the guard,” she says, reads the rest of the documents to find a detailed account of an attempted assault on an elven maid. Interesting—Anora was the one who stopped that attack, interrupted before it could occur and coaxed the story out of the frightened woman. She may have to reevaluate her opinion of the former Queen.

“It seems we do,” Cailan says.

She sets the orders down, blinking thoughtfully at them for moment before she looks up to stare him in the face. She takes a breath, opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, and Cailan thinks _oh no, she’s going to yell_. And, well, he can’t have that, can he? She’ll wake up half the palace, he’s surprised they’re not up and running about like chickens with their heads cut off already.

So he bends down and kisses her, because it seems so much easier.

He’s kissing her. Why is he kissing her? This is not the time; she places a hand on his chest and pushes just enough to make it clear he needs to not be doing this because as… not unpleasant as it is, this is not the time. “Why?”

“Maker, sorry, I didn’t, I won’t, I’m sorry—” he babbles, because he’s an idiot. “I won’t, again, I won’t, I’m sorry.”

“No, that is not—don’t apologize,” she says, stares at the dirt under her fingernails because that was not bad at all just poorly timed and she’s finding she would not be opposed to, well, trying again. “I was just going to—I was just going to recommend a review of Teryn Loghain’s tenure as commander and remind you that I had suggested Ser Gilmore take over the guard at some point.”

“We’ll have to do that, won’t we,” Cailan says. He swallows hard, and has to force himself not to look at her, because he knows if he does, he won’t be able to keep himself together. He’s never been very good at—feelings. They’re hard. “Ser Gilmore… yes, I’ll get on that, soon as I can. He’s good at what he does.”

“Whenever you are ready. I suspect tomorrow morning there will be a new recruit for the queensguard, which will free him a bit to work with the city guard.” She draws her hand back; the palm is entire too warm. This is not… she hasn’t had to do anything like this since she was fifteen and Gil gave her a bouquet of seashells and that was so very long ago, it feels. It was easier then, though. They had years of knowing each other behind that, growing up alongside each other, personalities entwined as only those who go through childhood together can be. So instead she steps back and simply says “The tea is getting cold.”

So it is, he thinks. “Would you like a cup to go? Or will you stay, for a while?”

“I can stay,” she says, possibly against better judgement. “We should probably begin preparing for the review. Arl Kendalls, too. He will not be happy, come morning.”

Cailan grins at her, really grins. “Alright,” he says. “Here, sit down, I’ll pour.”

“Why does the palace have a tea set with the crest of Highever on it?” she asks quickly, trying to find something to focus on. Sitting down, the spears crossed over the green raindrop is _right_ _there_ and it hurts somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

“Because Chamberlain likes you,” Cailan tells her, very gently. “You can keep it.”

“Your chamberlain does not know me.”

“Chamberlain knows _everyone_ , I think he might be a little bit magic. And you—he probably thinks you could use something of home. I mean, I think so, anyway,” he says. The tea pours out fragrantly dark, lavender and mint and wild roses, pressed and dried at the height of the summer previous. It’s good for sleep, and for calm. No chamomile, which is strange, but there’s no telling with the way Chamberlain’s mind works. Cailan doesn’t ask; when he said that there was no point, he meant it.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, holds the cup like it might vanish if she blinks. “Interesting blend.”

“Not bad, I hope?”

She will reserve judgment on the chamberlain until the day seashells turn up in the Queen’s Wing, but as far as first impressions go, this is not bad at all. “It’s good, yes. Where should we start?”

“Wherever you want,” Cailan says. “We’ve got time.”

“Arl Kendalls, I would think. I somehow doubt his son will see morning.” That elf girl—Kally, right?—is a violent little thing. Vicious and unforgiving, shaking like she would burn the alienage herself to stop Vaughan. No, the Arl will likely find himself without a son come sunrise. “That is the most pressing issue.”

 

—

 

Shianni’s watching Kally wash the night off in the sink, arms wrapped around her knees.

She doesn’t know what time it is, but maybe that’s not surprising. She doesn’t know about a lot of things, anymore, but especially not this. She hasn’t cried, yet. She doesn’t think she can. Soris is gone, talking to Uncle Cyrion and Valendrian about… something, who knows. Not Shianni. She hides her face in her knees, tries to breathe, tries to _breathe_.

“Ahni,” Kally’s voice is low, tight with pain and shared sorrow. “What can I do? Tell me what I can do, and I’ll do it, promise.”

“Nothing,” Shianni says. “Just. Stay, okay?”

Kally’s fists clench bloodless white, because that’s the thing, isn’t it, she doesn’t know if she can. Vaughan won’t be back, and that’s good, because Andraste knows he needed to stop breathing. But the likelihood of she gets out of this alive is slim to none.

She’s not counting on a saviour. That’s not a thing that happens, where she lives. But while it’s all true, it won’t _help_. Shianni needs security, and reminding her that they have about none will do nothing but send her into another panic attack.

Maker, if Kally could kill Vaughan a second time, she would.

“Course,” she says, off-hand. It’s easy to be casual, to pretend like nothing’s changed. Kally’s eighteen, not stupid. There’s a difference, though not much of one. “C’mon, Soris is probably stealing all the blankets.”

She helps Ahni stand. Her cousin is only a little wobbly, but when she smiles there’s something haunted in her gaze. It’s going to be a long time before anyone is okay, but they’ll make it there. They leave the bathroom hand in hand, in the way of children.

Soris hears the bathroom door open but does not look up. He’s only just noticed the grain of the table looks vaguely like the Grand Cleric’s robes. And then Kally slides into the chair across from him and takes the now-cold tea to pour two new cups. “Uncle Cyrion and Valendrian are out talking to the guards,” he says, quiet enough he’s not sure he spoke aloud at all.

They came ages ago, but Kally was still… Maker, it’s all gone sideways now. Ser Gilmore assured them that Lady Elissa would keep them safe, but the guard is at the door and he doubts the adults can hold them back for much longer. It’s all over, isn’t it? This is the end. They killed the Arl’s son and countless guards and now it’s their turn.

“I’m sorry, Soris,” Kally says. She looks down into her cold tea, watches the reflection of her pinched face. “It’s my fault. But I couldn’t… it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, anyway.”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, dully. “Not anymore. It needed doing. That’s all that matters.”

“...What are we going to do?”

No one knows who says it; it could have been any one of them. But it hangs there in the air between them, curdling like sour milk. It’s a good question, if an uncomfortable one. _What do we do now? What do we do, when we’ve killed all our options?_

“We keep doing what we’ve been doing,” he says, looks up, finally. Fen’Harel take them all if Kally doesn’t look as tired as he feels. Nothing for it now, so he shrugs. “We do what’s right.”

“Soris,” Kally says, her hands curled around her cup, “when they come for us, say it was me. Ada and Ahni need you, and Uncle Valendrian, too. I’m the most expendable, and it was my fault.”

“We didn’t kill all the guards, Kal,” he says, softly. “They can identify me.”

She shakes her head, fast, violent. “They’ll ask who did it. One dead elf is better than two imprisoned. It’s cheaper.”

Ser Gilmore said they would be safe. Lady Elissa said they would be safe. So much for the new queen being a good noble. There’s a knock at the door. “Showtime, Kal. Do you want to get the door or should I?”

“Oh,” Kally says, pulling on an awful smile. “Please, let me.”

She doesn’t want Shianni to see this. She’d rather _no one_ see it, frankly, but the city guard aren’t good people, and she doesn’t expect much out of them. Still, giving a situation its dramatic due is par for the course of Kally’s life, and she opens the door with a flourish.

“Gentlemen, hello,” she says. “What can I do for you?”

Valendrian sighs heavily. Of course Kallian would be the one to open the door. He turns to Cyrion and says lowly, “Get Shianni to the back room and keep her there until this is over.”

Cyrion stares at his daughter. Kallian’s wearing her mother’s boots. That never bodes well. And he knows her, knows her down to her marrow: she’s going to do whatever she can to make this right, even if that means she goes to her own death.

Maker, he loves her so very, very much. And he’s not going to get another chance to say goodbye but this one. He’s far too superstitious to do it, anyway, but he touches her shoulder and says “Andraste protect you, my dear,” into her ear as he passes. Valendrian is right, of course, and he does need to get Shianni away from this, but Kally—

“I love you, Ada,” she whispers over her shoulder. “I’ll be fine.”

She won’t be, but that’s something else entirely, isn’t it.

Shianni’s crying. “Uncle Cyrion, we can’t let them—”

“We don’t have a choice,” Cyrion hushes her, even as he helps her up from the table. “We must believe. Come now, Ahni, let’s get you into bed, you need to rest. You’ve had a difficult day.”

He closes the door behind him, and thinks that if this is the last he sees of his daughter, it will have been of her free and he proud of her, and there is nothing more he can ask for.

Valendrian draws himself up to his full height, which admittedly, is not very tall at all compared to the human guards, but it’s about all he can do to help make his point. “Gentleman, you still have not explained why you are here. I cannot permit you to harass my people without due cause.”

The guard just looks bored. “We’ve been sent to find a pair o’ elves, on suspicion o’ killin’ the Arl’s son. Man an’ a woman, we’re told, carryin’ swords.”

“There are no swords upon any of the elves at this residence,” he says, firmly. “Exactly what makes you suspicious of these two? There are many men and many women in this alienage. None with easy access to swords, though.”

Soris sighs, stands, and moves to just behind Kally. It was actually a dagger and a mace, though Kally _did_ pick up a sword at the very end. “You okay, Kal?”

“Swords? Really? That’s typical,” she mutters in reply. “Idiots can’t be bothered to do their research.”

“They’re just guards. Be more concerned with whoever is pulling their strings.”

“We was tipped off,” says the guard. “Said they’d be ‘ere. A blonde elf an’ her boyfriend. E’s a red’ead.”

Valendrian sighs. Really _sighs_. Humans. Can’t kill them, can’t live with them. There’s a flash of Rivaini armor by the vhenadahl, and Duncan steps into view. Of course he would be here. This works out perfectly for him, after all. All tied up with a nice silk bow, isn’t it? “Guardsmen, if your witness is willing to step forward and identify them, then I will gladly step aside. However, I cannot allow you to come here and take my people on the basis of anonymous ‘tips’ from supposedly concerned citizens.”

“Looks like you were right, Kal. I shouldn’t have trusted the shem,” Soris whispers.

“Not your fault,” she murmurs. “We wouldn’t have made it out without him. It’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees; Mama always said that.”

“That may be,” he says quietly. “How are we going to handle this? Uncle Valendrian can’t hold them off forever.”

If only he could. Soris can think of a million and one better things to wake up to in the morning, but none of them are present at the moment. He knows he cannot allow Kallian to take the blame for everything, despite her request. He knows he cannot leave the family unprotected, as Kallian pointed out. Something is going to have to give if any good is to come out of this.

“Oi, Bragan, bring the elf what told us ‘bout the Arl’s son!” shouts the guard over his shoulder. He’s got the look of a man who is not paid enough for this level of tomfoolery. His face is very punchable, Kally thinks idly.

And then, of course, it registers that it was an _elf_ who sold them out. She has to fight not to laugh uncontrollably when the guards part, and one of them’s got Elva by the elbow, grip tight enough to bruise.

That _bitch_ , Kally thinks. She’s almost impressed.

Duncan sees the defeat in Valendrian’s pose long before the hahren motions for him to come forward. It seems an elf sold out her own people. Mercy on them all, that is _vicious_. The alienage has always had problems, but for things to be this bad… Lady Elissa’s ascent to the throne is well-timed indeed. He clears his throat and says plainly, “Gentleman, I am here to invoke the Right of Conscription on Kallian and Soris Tabris.”

If looks could kill. If only. Valendrian only meant for one of them to be taken. He knows his children, knows them well. But then Elva. _Elva_. Damn. Should have sent her away to a different alienage when he had the chance. “Warden-Commander, both of them?”

Duncan nods. “Both of them. With the Blight, we need all the Wardens we can get. Guards, you may leave.”

“Can’t let you, Warden,” says one of the guards, unexpectedly. His splintmail jangles as he shakes his head. “Arl Urien wants ‘em taken to the castle. Killed his son, they did, ‘e wants an example made.”

“Then to the castle,” Duncan says, trying his very hardest to not smile. He may not have Elissa for the Wardens, but these two shall do just fine. “Hahren Valendrian will be joining us as well.”

“I will be?” the hahren hisses, jaw clenched tight. Duncan just nods before stepping out of the way of the retreating guards, Kallian and Soris both with them.

“...Why aren’t we dead yet? I feel like we should probably be dead?” Kally says to Soris under her breath, quiet enough that neither the guard in front of her nor the one behind can hear. But she and Soris and Ahni have spoken like this since they were children, whispering too quiet to hear after the lights had gone out. “Soris, why aren’t we dead?”

“A god must think this is funny,” he says, faint. “Somewhere, a god is laughing at us.”

“Which god, and please don’t say one of the elven ones. They’re nothing but trouble,” Kally says. They’re moving through Denerim at a rather alarming rate; she hasn’t done a run through the noble quarter like this in a long time, and _that_ time she was wearing proper breathable armour. This would be exciting, if she weren’t so sure she was going to accidentally end up yelling at the Arl of Denerim and getting murdered for it.

Kally’s never seen the noble estates in the daylight. They’re so pretty, she’s almost insulted. _Rich people_ , she thinks, awed by the sheer _audacity_ of it. _They’ve no taste_.

“Pretty sure neither Andraste nor the Maker are this cruel,” Soris murmurs. The estates around them are almost as tall as the alienage walls, but each building belongs to only one family. It’s _obscene_. How anyone could need that much space is beyond him. “But at least the shem didn’t sell us out.”

Dreamily, Kally says “I’m going to kill Elva, I swear I am.”

“Nothing for it, now,” says Soris, moving a step closer to her as a guard glares at them. “Maybe when the darkspawn get here, we’ll let them have her _before_ we save everyone. Or use her as a distraction. They can eat her while we get everyone else to safety.”

“Would they want to eat her, though? I can’t imagine that’d be a healthy meal, and I’m sure even darkspawn have standards,” Kally says. The streets are wide, here, and paved with large, flat stones good for walking. People are staring, curious noble children with their square shem eyes. What, haven’t they ever seen an elf arrested before? Maker, she’s never going to live this down, if she lives though it at all.

“Pretty sure they don’t mind and if she poisons them, it’s less work for us,” he says. Up ahead, a pair of gates opens up to a place he has only dreamed up before. “I think this might be it, Kal. It’s been nice knowing you.”

“You, too, you great worrywart,” Kally says, and her throat goes tight with fondness. “Try not to die.”

 

—

 

Cailan sits back in his chair, feeling like a mess.

He and Elissa spent the entire night going through the law books, and he’s feeling a bit ill about it; most of the old Orlesian laws are still in place, though he can’t understand why, given what he knows about his father.

“Well, this is all… terrible,” he says, at last. “Maker, I’m hungry.”

Elissa rubs at her eyes. Sleep seems so distant with so much work to be done. She yawns and says, “Tea and food both sound lovely.”

There’s a quiet knock on the door. Cailan and Elissa both go tense. It’s not been an easy night, and they’re both still jumpy.

But it’s just Chamberlain, carrying a tea tray in his gnarled old hands. Elissa’s Mabari walks at his heels, panting happily. Chamberlain’s eyes are filmed over; he’s been blind as long as Cailan’s been alive, and likely much longer besides, but he navigates the room without any trouble whatsoever. The tea set is the old silver one Cailan’s grandmother loved for its practicality. It shines dully in the morning sun through the window. There’s two types of tea, jam, toast, several hard-boiled eggs cut in perfect halves and salted, two poached eggs, and a bowl of strawberries carved into flowers.

“Your Majesties,” Chamberlain says in his wavery crunched-gravel voice, “breakfast. Mangoes, regretfully, are not in season; there’ve been no merchants in from Par Vollen in some time. I tried, Lady Cousland, I did try.”

Elissa snaps her mouth closed when the tray clinks against the desk. _Mangoes_? How did—only Gil and Dane know that. She manages to choke out the words “Thank you, Chamberlain?”

The old man bows low. “If there is anything you need,” he says, and then promptly melts into the woodwork like he’s not there at all. The study door closes behind him with a muted _click_.

“Is he always—” Elissa can’t quite finish her sentence and looks to Cailan for help.

Cailan shrugs, and reaches for a piece of toast. The jam is raspberry, which is exactly what he’d wanted. Chamberlain always knows. “Like that? Yes, he is. No one believes me when I say he’s part of the castle, but is there really any other explanation? He always knows. Always. It’s a little frightful when I think about it, so I try not to. Do you want some toast?”

She blinks. Between the chamberlain and Amethyne, the palace is going to be _very_ interesting. The Chantry will be breathing down her neck in no time. So she smiles weakly, and says, “Yes, please. Thank you. Do you know which tea is which?”

“I think this one’s just ordinary breakfast tea? And that one’s… smells like orange? Lemon? It’s citrus, here, try it.”

“Bergamot oil,” she says. She’d know that smell anywhere. “It’s from Starkhaven.”

“He brought that one for you, then,” Cailan says, and pours her a cup. The sun’s been up for hours, now, but he doesn’t think it’s later than ten o’clock in the morning. Chamberlain is very prompt about breakfast; no later than nine-thirty, ever, else it would be brunch. “I told you he likes you.”

“I’m not going to ask any questions,” she says. “I don’t think I want to know how he came by information only Ser Gilmore or Dane would have.”

“He used to bring me ink, always a minute before I ran out and started cursing,” Cailan says, grin wry. “Still does, actually, he’s got no shame.”

She nods, still processing the information because the tea, actually, is information not even Gil or Dane would have. Though, she supposes it would be easy enough to look at her family tree and guess. Great-Grandmother was from Starkhaven, after all. “Useful, if odd. I still don’t know what I could have done to impress him.”

“I don’t know,” Cailan shrugs again, buttering another piece of toast. He goes through so much food, it’s a good thing Chamberlain knows him so well and brought up so much, or else he’d have been liable to eat everything in sight and leave none for Elissa. He did that a couple of times with Anora, and it had not gone over well. To be fair, those were usually the mornings after he’d done something Chamberlain had disapproved of; looking back, those mornings were very likely Chamberlain’s form of punishment. Huh. “But the last person he didn’t like went running out of my father’s court screaming, so I think it’s a good thing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” The eggs are perfectly poached. Interesting. It took Nan _years_ to get that right, and that grouchy old woman practically raised her, Andraste bless her soul. “Could you please pass the book about your father’s treaty with the alienage?”

“Yeah, course,” Cailan says. He wipes his fingers before he grabs it. It’s an old book. “Here.”

Once her hand is clean, she takes the book and balances it on her knee, flipping to a page detailing the first negotiations when the then-new hahren Valendrian. “It looks like it was always his intention to remove the Orlesian laws, and they should have been overturned when the treaty went through. So somewhere along the line, someone must have done something, which means the treaty may not be valid.”

She’s right, which is a problem, because the treaty with the elves is part of what his father was most proud of, something that would really set his reign apart from the Usurper’s. The other problem is that she is really incredibly attractive when she’s concentrating, and he would rather like to kiss her again. Well, that’s the opposite of a problem, really, but Cailan doesn’t think she’ll appreciate being interrupted when she’s working.

It’s a pity, and he’s probably going to get hit for it, but he thinks he might do it anyway.

“Elissa,” he says her name to get her attention, and waits for her to look up.

“Hm?” She has a strawberry in her mouth, the sweetness curling down her throat and dragging up memories of spring mornings with Mother and Father when they would eat breakfast outside before services at the Chantry. Swallowing quickly, she looks up and asks, “Something wrong?”

“No,” he says. There’s a drip of strawberry juice on her lower lip. “You’ve got—don’t move.”

Cailan bends across the table to lick it away. “There,” he says. “You’re perfect.”

Oh. _Oh_. That—um. _Oh_.

Elissa isn’t quite sure how to react, but his eyes are kind of wide and last night did not go well and—well, this is going to have to go a lot further at some point, isn’t it?

So she sets the book aside, and pulls him back to kiss him properly.

 _Oh dear_ , thinks Chamberlain, _they’ve gone and lost their heads. Oh, children, whatever would you do without me_.

“Ahem,” he says. They only started a minute ago, he has no idea how Lady Elissa has managed to migrate to Lord Cailan’s lap so quickly. They both ignore him. “ _Ahem_.”

Elissa hears the soft noise and breaks the kiss slowly. They’re both breathing hard and she has somehow ended up in his lap, but this is good.

Yes, this is good.

This marriage might actually work, Maker willing.

And then she realizes _who_ was speaking. “Hello, Chamberlain.”

“Chamberlain, go _away_ ,” says Cailan, a little punch-drunk. He’s tucked his face into the crook of Lady Elissa’s neck, and his ears are bright red. He got that from his mother, he did, Chamberlain thinks, fondly. Lady Rowan was just the same.

“I would, my lord, but you will have, ah, a visitor,” says Chamberlain. It won’t do for the King and his Queen-to-be to be discovered wrapped around each other like this, it’s a scandal waiting to happen. “Please stop mauling Lady Elissa’s shoulder, Arl Urien is about to—”

And then, of course, Arl Urien comes storming in.

Chamberlain curses his timing. So close. “Your Majesty, Arl Urien.”

There is a very gaping silence.

“Your Majesty,” Arl Urien says, stiffly.

“Arl Urien,” Cailan squeaks. Elissa’s piled on his lap, clinging like a limpet, dear Maker, is she just going to sit there and let him face this on his _own_? Oh, she is, isn’t she, he’s going to get her for this later. “Hello, how are you?”

Elissa detangles herself from Cailan quickly, standing and smoothing out the jacket. Iona is a miracle-worker, really, giving her new clothes she won’t trip over so quickly. It’s likely an old dress of Anora’s, reworked into a long jacket, a pair of breeches tucked into her good inscribed boots and _Maker_ she is a scandal and a half, isn’t she? Highever never cared if she walked around in breeches or armor.

But Denerim is not Highever.

Pity.

She smiles brightly, arms crossed behind her back and she _refuses_ to bow. “You must be the Arl of Denerim. I am Elissa Cousland. Is there a reason you have barged in here unannounced?”

The Arl is about ready to choke at the injustice. _This_ is the Queen-to-be? There is nothing proper about her at all! He huffs and stands up straight. “My son is dead because of you.”

“I’m sorry, Arl Urien, you must be mistaken,” Cailan says pleasantly. He, too, stands. “Your son is dead? My condolences, but I don’t see how this has anything to do with Lady Elissa.”

“Some of my guards survived,” he says, ice in his words. “They said a Ser Gilmore was there with two armed elves. He told them he was there on Lady Elissa’s orders before he cut them down. And then my Vaughan—”

“Why on the Maker’s green earth would they have needed to be there? What did your son do, Arl Urien, to provoke my lady’s ire?” Cailan blinks wide eyes, innocent to the last. “But your guards can’t be very good if three people got through them all. That’s a little embarrassing, I’m sorry.”

That little—this kingdom is bloody well doomed with them in charge. Urien takes a deep breath, knows the Captain of the Guard is in the hall awaiting his orders. “My son did nothing wrong. This was a blatant attack from the elves, and you, Lady Elissa, had best have a good reason for working with those knife-ears.”

“Your son did nothing? Then why were seven elven women being held against their will at your estate?” Elissa says, careful. Noblemen are such a dangerous sort, especially the self-important ones. “And why was one of those seven assaulted in a most vile manner not just by your son, but by several other young noblemen? This is not a new event, Arl Urien. Your son was a monster and it was only a matter of time before one of the elves he attacked decided to turn and attack him. In fact, it was one of them. I understand that the young woman who ultimately took Vaughan’s life was to be taken first but was left for later simply because she was unconscious and it would, quote, ‘be no fun unless they could hear her scream’.

“I would be more interested in knowing why your guards were complicit in his actions and why the city guard did nothing to stop it. Especially since there were orders from the king to not allow your son anywhere near the alienage and preventing him access would have put a stop to the constant riots.”

“Vaughan was not responsible for those creatures’ riots. They’re liars and criminals, the lot of them!” He turns to Cailan, angry. “Your Majesty, you’re not really going to listen to this, are you?”

Cailan tilts his head. “Arl, did you know your son cornered one of our maids?”

The Arl, to his credit, remains silent.

“It was three years ago,” Cailan elaborates. Three years is a long time. “The only reason the girl remained unharmed was because my Lady Anora caught him before it could go further than it did. The maid was elven, and she had an interesting tale to tell about your son. He was the Alienage’s worst nightmare, according to her, came often to disturb to the peace.”

He pauses, to let it sink in.

“So yes,” he says, after a moment, “I think I will listen to it. In fact,” he glances at Elissa, and he thinks _yes_ , “I think I’ll even allow Lady Elissa the freedom to determine your punishment.”

Elissa takes in a sharp breath, ready to speak when the Arl’s face twists up angrily and he turns towards the door, calling, “Captain!”

And then the door opens to reveal not just one very uncomfortable Captain of the guard, but the two elves in question with Duncan and an elder elf close behind.

How _interesting_.

“Warden-Commander, good morning,” she says, smiling, “What brings you here?”

“It seems the Arl of Denerim wishes to refuse me the Right of Conscription for these two,” Duncan says simply.

This morning is getting better and better, Cailan thinks. The two elves are very clearly related; they have the same pointed nose and their foreheads crease the same way when they frown. The girl is young, very young, and very fair. She’s all white-blonde hair and pale eyes, and he thinks she’d be pretty if she weren’t scowling so fiercely. The boy is—not a boy at all, he’s very near Cailan’s age, redheaded and tall for an elf.

“I’m sorry,” Cailan says. “He wishes to _what_?”

“The Right of Conscription,” Duncan repeats. “I am claiming these two for the Wardens.”

Elissa crosses her arms across her chest, looking carefully over the two. “You can have her, but Soris stays.”

“I am sorry, my lady, but could you please repeat that?” Duncan is fairly certain he heard that wrong. Surely Lady Elissa did not just refuse him the Right.

“Soris stays,” she repeats. “Ser Gilmore tells me he is a promising knight, and I find myself in need of a better staffed queensguard.”

Not exactly what he was expecting, but it does still solve the problem of keeping both Tabris children out of the Arl’s hands. “An elf in the queensguard will be most unusual, my lady.”

She shrugs. “The queensguard currently consists of Ser Gilmore and a Mabari. An elf will not be too strange. Your Majesty, do you object?”

“Not at all, Lady Elissa,” Cailan says, grinning wide. He’s struck with the urge to stick his hands in his breeches’ pockets, because he knows it makes him look like a scheming child. Also, it’ll likely annoy the Arl further, and anything that bothers Arl Urien can only be a good thing in Cailan’s book. Oh the topic of the Arl, in fact: the man’s puffed up with rage like an Antivan parrot, sputtering without words. It’s quite unattractive. They should do something about that.

“Arl Urien,” he says brightly, “is there anything else you wanted?”

The Arl only sputters, and so Elissa takes that as opportunity to say “And we still have to deal with you. It seems that in failing to reign in your son, you have done great harm to the citizens of this city. I would think going to Ostagar to aid against the Blight would be a good way to regain the city’s trust for yourself and your men.”

“Your Majesty?” The Arl says weakly.

“We do need more men at Ostagar,” the king sighs. The Arl’s looking a bit faint, but that’s rather to be expected. He’s wilted down to a shell of a man; Elissa’s taken the wind out of his sails. It was rather magnificent to watch. “The darkspawn don’t wait, and neither shall we. I’d suggest you leave, now, Arl, if only to save yourself more trouble.”

Duncan steps aside to let the Arl through. “Is there anything else, or may I take Kallian now?”

“Of course, Warden-Commander,” Cailan says. “I’m sorry about this—Kallian, is that your name?”

The girl’s eyes narrow down to sky-blue slats in her face. “I don’t want or need a human lord’s pity. You’ve not been _my_ king, _Your Majesty_. Don’t expect me to bow and scrape.”

“I don’t,” says Cailan, taken aback at the vitriol in her voice. “I just—I don’t. I’m sorry, Lady Kallian. We need all the Wardens we can get.”

She huffs, and turns away. It’s refreshingly rude, and also strangely reminiscent of precisely how Elissa had been—Maker, has it only been a week? It seems like so much longer than that—when she’d first come to Denerim.

“Then if this is settled, we should be going,” Duncan says. “We have much to prepare for. Kallian?”

“If I must,” she tosses her hair over her shoulder, but then pauses to touch the other elf’s shoulder. “Take care of Ahni while I’m gone, Soris.”

He nods. “I will. Don’t get yourself killed, Kal.”

“You know I won’t,” she says. “Can we go now, or must I pretend to care some more?”

Duncan’s smile is small, but there. This girl will go far, he thinks. “Yes, of course. Right this way.”

And then there were three. Elissa surveys the remaining two elders, who keep exchanging bitter looks between them. The Captain and the elf can be dealt with later. “Soris, if you want to wait outside, Ser Gilmore should be along shortly.”

“Of course, my lady.” Soris bows stiffly, still a little unsure of what exactly just happened. He bows again to Valendrian and all but _runs_ out the door.

“Hahren Valendrian, please sit down,” Cailan says, indicates the chair across the desk where not half an hour ago he’d been having breakfast with Elissa. The tea tray is still there, for Andraste’s sake.

Valendrian, for his part, merely sighs and takes a seat. It’s going to be a long morning, it seems. “Of course, Your Majesty. Is there something you wish to discuss?”

“Please, call me Cailan. There are—things, things about the treaty with the Alienage that we need to deal with. But first—” he pauses, and narrows his eyes at the Captain of the guard. “—you.”

Elissa watches as the Captain straightens his stance. He’s a good soldier, that much is clear, but there’s more to the job of guard than just knowing when to show respect. “The guard had orders to keep Vaughan Kendalls out of the Alienage. Why was he not stopped?”

The guard shuffles, a little unsure. “Er, m’lady, those aren’t our orders? We’re to watch ‘im in the market district, that’s all. Ev’rywhere else, e’s fair game.”

“Who gave you those orders?” Elissa says, the links already being made. There’s a sinking feeling somewhere in the vicinity of her stomach that feels like the problems with the orders and the problems with the treaty will all be traced back to the same source. _Maker_ , this city is a mess. How has it not burned to the ground before now?

“Teryn Loghain, m’lady, it’s ‘is seal. Got ‘is signature, we do.”

Cailan draws a slow breath in through his nose. Ah. Well. That’s. That’s something else, isn’t it. Not a good something else, and he’s going to have to write to Anora as soon as he’s alone. There’s no telling what else her father’s stuck his nose into, but it’s not—Loghain practically _raised_ him, this doesn’t make any _sense_.

But now isn’t really the time to have an identity crises, Cailan reminds himself.

“Thank you, Captain,” he says quietly. “You may be dismissed.”

“Your Majesty,” Valendrian starts, watching the Captain go, “is there a problem with the treaty?”

“I’m… not sure how to put this,” Cailan says, frowning. “But, before we start, would you like some tea?”

“Thank you, but if we could just get to the subject of this?”

“Hahren, please,” Cailan stares at him pleadingly. “The tea will help.”

Elissa draws up a chair and, before sitting, finds a spare cup and fills it with the almost cold Starkhaven blend. “Sorry it isn’t warmer. It’s been there a while.”

“Thank you,” Valendrian says, thinking of all the awful things they could be about to say, “but really, what is this about?”

“You know how the Captain received the wrong orders?” Elissa starts, glaring at Cailan. The man is rubbish at politics. No wonder the Bannorn was always saying Father should have been king instead. “It seems a similar issue occurred with the treaty. The version here is written with the intent to overturn the Orlesian laws left behind by the occupation, but that doesn’t appear to have happened with regards to enforcement.”

Valendrian nods. “I am well aware. I helped draft the treaty. It was a grave betrayal to find the Orlesian laws still in effect.”

He remembers that well. Adaia should have been safe, after all. There should have been no restriction on her carrying a weapon openly, nor in defending her child with lethal force. The Kendalls had always hated her, yes, but _still_. That awful Raleigh had started it. He could never quite understand it; Maric had seemed like such a good man.

“Well, it seems that when the treaty went into effect, certain key portions were missing,” Elissa says gently. “We would like to correct that.”

 _Oh_. Valendrian rather thinks he’s going to like this queen. She’s certainly an improvement over the last one. “If I may recommend looking into who has been handling your correspondence, Your Majesty? I have been trying for several years now to raise concerns over conditions in the Alienage, but never received a reply.”

“I… Chamberlain?” Cailan asks, and the man materializes at his elbow. “Do you know?”

“I receive your correspondence, Your Majesty,” Chamberlain sniffs. He peers down through bushy eyebrows, staring first at the king, then at the elven elder, then at the king again. “Hahren, there has been no letters to the palace from the Alienage in a very long time, to my knowledge.”

“So the congratulations I sent last week regarding His Majesty’s impending nuptials did not arrive?”

“No,” Chamberlain shakes his head, very slow, very grim. “Not as such.”

“Hahren, if you could please talk to Chamberlain about how your letters are being sent, perhaps we can narrow down a point of interception.” Elissa says. She almost feels sorry for Cailan. This is a fairly simple situation, but he’s completely out of his depth. If Anora was handling most of the diplomacy in the palace… it’s going to be a long tenure here. Cailan’s inability to handle people cannot be allowed to continue. Andraste’s knickers, she’s going to have to train him. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a new knight to check on.”

 

—

 

When Soris woke up this morning, he was expecting to be dead by sundown. And then he thought he might be off to Ostagar to join the Grey Wardens. And now? Now he is standing in a spacious room in the palace that is his and _his alone._ He keeps expecting to wake up, to find he’s still in the street with an aching head. He needs to check on Ahni, to see Uncle Cyrion and Uncle Valendrian.

Maker, Kally’s going to be a Grey Warden.

And he’s to join the queensguard. He laughs, a nervous sound that’s a bit too high for a man of his age. He’s with the queensguard. A knight. An actual knight in the queensguard and he’s still an elf. Still pointy eared and not human, still Soris Tabris, and definitely not dreaming because that is a sword and shield all his own that Ser Gilmore gave him less than an hour ago, before he was led to this room and told to settle in.

This is his room. This is his _life_.

He sits down on the bed—a real bed! It’s soft and filled with something better than straw and scraps of fabric and it’s _his_ —and just stares at the blank shield. No crest yet, because Lady Elissa apparently only has her crest from Highever and that one isn’t appropriate for the Queen of Fereldan.

Lady Elissa is a kind woman. Strong and fair and she’ll make a good queen. Not even queen yet and she’s already made things better for the elves. The humans too, not they’ll know that. And Ser Gilmore is a good man. A better knight, actually, but a good man beneath that. That either one would look at someone like him and see something worth supporting—

Is the room spinning? He feels like the room is spinning. He’s also fairly certain the door is opening and Iain’s baby sister is standing there, but this whole day has been so surreal he isn’t quite sure what’s true anymore.

“Uhm, Soris? Are you in here?” Iona pokes her head into the barracks room. It’s just down the hall from her own room in the Queens Wing’s servants’ quarters. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve finally lost it,” he says, “and I’m fairly certain none of this is happening.”

Iona laughs faintly. “Yes,” she says, “that’s how I felt, too. Feel, sometimes. It’s—it’s been a tiring couple of days, hasn’t it.”

“Yes, it has. Is it always like this?” Soris isn’t sure how many more days like this he can handle. If this is normal—maybe there’s still time to join the Wardens.

“We’ve only been here a week,” Iona says, smilingly kind. “I think it’ll settle down once Lady Elissa and King Cailan are married.”

He laughs, an almost bitter sound he didn’t know he was capable of. “I’m _supposed_ to be married.”

“I used to be,” she says, pulls flyaway hairs away from her lips. “But he died. We don’t always… have choices, about where we end up. I never expected, well, any of this, really.”

“How is anyone supposed to expect this?” He finally looks at her, tries so hard to see Iain in her because right now he could really use a friend like that, but there is nothing, really. Just the eyes. “We’re elves. Things like this aren’t supposed to happen to us.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Iona says. She’s still standing in the doorway, and she thinks he must either invite her in to sit and close the door, because this is crass. But mostly he looks lost, and she remembers that feeling. She’d felt it, too, that sickening stomach-turning _uncertainty_. She’d felt it when she told Lady Elissa about Amethyne. She still feels it now. “I think we’re due for some good things, as a people.”

“I still keep expecting Fen’Harel to turn up, just like the stories,” he confesses, and it is a confession because he’s never said anything like that aloud. It never seemed… _safe_ to say anything that acknowledged something other than the Chant but, well, there are things that the Chant doesn’t deal with. And to be completely honest, the Chant never really felt like it was meant for elves, despite Thane Shartan.

She giggles, because she can’t help it. He’s funny, even though she doesn’t think he means to be. “I don’t think the Trickster has much use for people like you and I, Soris. He’s got much bigger things on his mind.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Who’s to say this isn’t his idea of a vacation?” He moves over towards the end of the bed. “You can come in, you know. This probably isn’t something someone should overhear.”

“There’s no one up here to hear it,” she tells him honestly, but she closes the door behind her regardless. Amethyne is sitting in Lady Elissa’s book room, and Dane’s got his eye on her; Iona isn’t worried, if only because she knows the Mabari is big enough to pick her little girl up and physically carry her out of trouble.

“What are they like?” he asks, nervous as a child. “The humans here, I mean. What are they like?”

“Lady Elissa is the kindest person I’ve ever met, human _or_ elf. She—helped. Do you, uh, know? What happened in Highever?”

“Just that it fell,” he says, “Nelaros and Valora didn’t really talk much about Highever, and the criers only said it had fallen and that Arl Howe is a traitor to the crown.”

Iona looks down at her hands, thinking. “Highever was… the most beautiful place. It’s right by the ocean, you know and you can almost smell salt in the air. I wasn’t there for very long, only visiting. But the night before we would have returned, the castle was attacked. And—and a lot of people died. I nearly did, but Lady Elissa—” she breathes in, the memory of that night flashing hot and smoky across her mind’s eye, the burning fire, Lady Landra’s broken body, “—kept me alive. And there are… other things, too.”

Her lips curve up. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s close. “She’ll be a good Queen. I believe in her.”

He nods, slow, the information turning over in his mind. “And Ser Gilmore? Do you know anything about him?”

“He fought his way out of Highever with us,” she says. “And he loves Lady Elissa very much.”

She doesn’t tell him about that quiet moment she’d caught between them, because it isn’t her business or anyone else’s, for that matter. Lady Elissa has her silence for Highever; she has her loyalty for Amethyne. There’s nothing anyone in the world can do that could change that, now.

“A lot of people seem to love her very much,” he murmurs. He thinks of Aunt Adaia and the way the entire alienage seemed forever dim after her death. “Some people are just like that.”

“I don’t think she’s impossible not to love, if that’s what you mean,” Iona says, tips her head back and forth. “She’s got a mean streak a mile wide, but it’s—a protective streak, if that makes sense? I’m not explaining it right, I apologize.”

“No, I get it. Kally’s just the same. Ahni too, actually.”

“I should have asked,” Iona says, eyes wide. Her hands curl into the fabric of her skirt, and she sort of… _withdraws_ , makes herself smaller, her chest cavity caving in and her shoulders crumpling. “Are they alright? All of them? I—I know what Vaughan is like. I—I know.”

For the first time since the Templars came, he prays Iain is long dead. Because _this_ will kill him for sure. The guilt, the helplessness of having someone you love so badly hurt and being completely unable to do something—the only thing worse is being the one hurt. He starts to say he’s sorry, but closes his mouth. It’s pointless to apologize for something like this. Pity… pity helps no one but the pitiful, and Iona may be many things, but pitiful is not one of them.

“He’s dead now,” is what he finally says. “He can’t hurt anyone else now.”

“It was a long time ago, anyway,” Iona says, voice distant.

“So were a lot of other things,” Soris says, staring once more at the blank shield. “Doesn’t mean they don’t still hurt.”

“That’s true,” Iona says, because it is. “But sometimes… sometimes good things come from the worst experiences.”

His vision goes a little blurry and he can’t quite decide if it’s exhaustion or tears. “My aunt used to say something like that. Now she’s dead and her daughter is to go to war.”

Maker, what would Aunt Adaia say about this? Kallian is to be a Grey Warden. No one comes back from that, do they? And Uncle Cyrion is left in the alienage. Not alone, but he must be a little lonelier with only Ahni and Valendrian there. And him, he’s to be a knight for a Cousland queen. Aunt Adaia would… she’d laugh, he thinks. Because that’s the kind of person Aunt Adaia was. The world goes to shit? Laugh it off.

He never did master that.

“Oh, Soris,” she says, and kneels down beside him. “I… I can’t say I understand. But… there’s someone I think you should meet, and then maybe you’ll understand. Please?”

“Not sure it’s a good idea for me to try walking right now.” It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but his legs feel like jelly sitting down. Standing up just seems impossible. He can see her eyes, though. Just like Iain’s, they’re blue-grey and so, so honest. He breathes out and it takes away whatever fight was left in him. “Fine. Okay, I’ll come.”

“If you really don’t want to move, I can bring her here,” Iona says, mouth creasing in concern. “But if you do you feel up to it, I might even hold your hand.”

“Just help me up, you brat,” and it’s a fond word, a bit dusty from being unused for so long, but it’s… normal, almost? Normal is good. Normal is very good.

Iona laughs, a bright sound at odds with the silence of the Queen’s Wing, and pushes off the floor. She brushes off her knees, and then offers him a hand. “Come along, she’s not far.”

Her hand is strong in his. Stronger than his, even, and stable in a way he wasn’t expecting. She must be made of willow, to weather so much without breaking. He hadn’t even noticed the white door on his way up here. It’s an unassuming thing, even the white paint is dim in the torchlight. “What is this place?”

“The Queen’s Wing,” she tells him, looking over her shoulder, lips curling, and she doesn’t let go of his hand. “Lady Elissa’s rooms.”

It’s… empty, almost? Like everything has just been cleared out and whoever is living here hasn’t quite decided what she wants it to look like. There are no personal touches, but what would there be? Highever fell violently. It’s not like Lady Elissa had time to pack her things. He stays quiet, letting Iona lead him through empty room after empty room until suddenly they’re in a room filled top to bottom with _books_. “Of course she has a library,” he says, because of course. When there is nothing personal, there are always books.

“Most of these belonged to Lady Anora,” Iona says. “But I doubt they’ll be here much longer. Lady Elissa hasn’t had the time to choose her own, yet, we’ve been… busy.” She stops, and calls “Amethyne! Amethyne, where are you?”

“I’m here, mama!” comes a small voice, followed by a happy bark. “And Dane’s here, too!”

“Don’t let him slobber on the books, they’re worth more than you and I combined,” Iona says just as a little girl comes barreling out of nowhere to knock into her, thin arms going around her waist.

“Found you, mama,” the little girl laughs.

“So you did,” Iona says, pushes blonde-red strands away from the girl’s face. “Amethyne, there’s someone I want you to say hello to. This is Soris, he’s Lady Elissa’s new guard.”

“Him?” Amethyne asks. She blinks at Soris. Her eyes are a stormy blue-grey, like her mother’s. Like Iain’s. “Hiya! I’m Ammy!”

“Amethyne,” Iona says, scolding.

The girl huffs out a tiny little sigh, purses her lips. “Mama, my name is long and complicated. Ammy sounds nicer.”

“Yes, beloved, I know, but it’s not how you ought to introduce yourself to someone,” Iona says, “is it?”

Amethyne sighs, and again turns to grin at Soris. She’s missing a tooth. “Hello, Ser Soris. Pleased to _meet_ you. I’m _Amethyne_ -but-call-me-Ammy-because-it-sounds-nicer!”

He blinks, and the girl is still there, still stormy eyed and bright and still— “Maker’s breath, you look like your uncle.”

And she does. She looks so much Iain it _hurts_. He’d almost forgotten what his best friend looked like, the years stretching on past the point of memory. She even sounds like him; a bright exuberance that Denerim hasn’t seen in _years_. He takes a deep breath, reaches up to brush away the blurriness at his eyes, and says, “Hello, Ammy-Amethyne. I’m Soris—just Soris. I was a friend of your uncle’s.”

She looks at him for a very long time, her head cocked the to the side. She looks up at her mother, a glance so short it would have been sneaky but for the fact that there’s nothing but wide-eyed innocence in her face.

And then she lets go of Iona, and comes to wrap her arms around him.

“It’s okay,” Amethyne tells him, very seriously. “Mama says the things we lose have a way of coming back to us, even when what we lose is a person. She’s right, even though she wasn’t talking about people. Uncle Iain’s not gone forever.”

“I hope you’re right, kid,” he says, wraps his arms around her tiny shoulders. “I hope you’re right.”

Iona watches them, the way her daughter manages to anchor even Soris’ tenuous hold on the world back into the present, and can’t help but wonder how she got so lucky. Amethyne lets him go, eventually, nods once, and then skips off like she hadn’t just turned the poor man’s world upside down.

She reaches out, catches his wrist.

“Come on, Soris,” she says, gently, “let’s get you into bed. You look like you could use some sleep.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: disclaimed  
> notes: alma would like to apologize. we had this all planned out and then this chapter happened. and pray for wren, beans. pray for wren.


	5. alone in a crowded room

“ _Please_ stop moving, Lady Elissa,” Iona sighs. “You are making this unduly difficult.”

Lady Elissa continues to fidget, which is entirely unhelpful. She’s clearly uncomfortable, despite the fact that the dress fits perfectly, and it’s as moveable as Iona could make it and still keep it in one piece.

Perhaps it’s not so much the dress and more what the dress _represents_.

Well, Iona can’t blame her for that. Highever is still a festering wound in Lady Elissa’s heart, something that’s not going to heal proper for a very long time, if at all. This dress, lovely as it is, it’s a tangible reminder that her world is never going to be the same. Iona carefully does up the last catch; the pearl-headed button shines beneath her thumb. “There we are, my lady, we’re done.”

Elissa turns to look in the mirror. Iona is a miracle worker, that much is sure. The dress is beautiful, more than anything she ever dreamt of. Her hair is bound up with braids dotted with pearls, all carefully arranged by the elf. Lady Landra knew what she was doing, elevating Iona to the position of lady-in-waiting. That much is sure. “It’s wonderful, thank you.”

Only, this makes it _real_ in a way that it wasn’t before.

She’s getting married.

To someone who isn’t Gil.

By someone who isn’t Revered Mother Theodora.

As much as she’s starting to warm to Cailan, it’s still too soon. She’s only recently twenty years old. That’s too young to marry. Andraste in a sea squall, Mother and Father weren’t married until much later than this. Father was too busy fighting the Orlesians and Mother too busy terrorizing the Waking Sea. They both had a chance to grow up, before marriage.

Even Fergus was older. He’d travelled more than her, had seen more of the world and knew more of himself.

And really, she’s far too young to be anyone’s mother.

“Do I have to do this?” she asks, almost begging for Iona to say no, to say that she’s free to run away at any moment. “We can’t put it off any longer?”

“We could,” Iona says, softly, because truly they could. “But we shouldn’t.”

“Because of Ostagar,” Elissa finishes. It’s all about Ostagar and the Blight. “How long until I have to be there?”

“An hour, still,” Iona says. “Come, my lady, sit down, let me make you some tea.”

Lady Elissa looks miserable, but she sits at the little table Iona had shook out of Chamberlain the day before without any more prompting. She pulls the kettle from the fire, and very carefully doesn’t watch the way her lady’s face crumples in on itself. It is a private breaking, Iona knows, and not something anyone should be privy to. She places a delicate china cup on the table in front of her lady, and nudges it.

“Drink, Lady Elissa,” Iona says, very gently. “It will help.”

“Thank you,” and she means it. “Will you be there?”

She thinks she might need that. There will be so few familiar faces for her. Gil, who will be too painful to look at, will be standing guard. As will Soris, who is still too new. Dane is not allowed inside the chamber where the wedding will occur, so he will be staying here with Amethyne. She just needs someone who isn’t…

Mother and Father won’t be there. Nor will Fergus, Oriana, Oren, or _anyone._ Maker, she’d even take Nan just to have someone with her. Highever’s loss gnaws at her insides, tearing into places she didn’t even know she had. The Queen’s Wing, Denerim—this place is not home. May never be home, not really.

“Of course, my lady,” Iona says. “I would never miss it.”

She forgets, sometimes, that Lady Elissa is younger than she is. It’s just that she seems so much older, so much of the time; it is only the thought of revenge that drives her, keeps her moving forwards. If she didn’t have it, she’d be lost amid her own grief.

This wedding has terrible timing, Iona sighs to herself. They’ve not even given her time to _grieve_ , and in the end, Lady Elissa is still so very _young_.

Iona can’t help but think she wouldn’t have done nearly so well.

“Thank you,” Elissa says. “For everything. I don’t think I would have made it this far without you.”

“May I speak freely, my lady?” Iona asks, because it’s still ingrained to always ask for permission, for all that Lady Elissa likely wouldn’t care if she said something truly, truly horrible.

“Always.” Elissa says, then realizes that that perhaps made no sense. “I mean, yes. Please. Don’t ever feel like you have to censure yourself when it’s just us.”

“Lady Elissa, I would be dead if I had not met you when I did,” Iona says, and reaches forwards to lay her hand across the knob of Lady Elissa’s wrist. “You returned my daughter to me, when I thought I would never see her again. We have managed this together, and I—I very much consider you a friend. So please, don’t thank me. I would do it all over again, the same every time.”

That knocks the air right out of her lungs, it feels like. “I don’t think I’ve ever really had a friend, you know? Other than Dane and Gil, but Gil—Gil doesn’t count, I don’t think.”

No, Gil doesn’t count, does he? Dane doesn’t either, not really. A dog is a companion, and a friend, yes, but not quite the same a friend who can talk to you. And Gil… they were never really friends, not if she’s completely honest. They were always going to go down the path they did. Delilah was more like an older sister and Oriana _was_ her older sister. Fergus was her brother and, well, there really wasn’t anyone else.

That’s pretty sad, isn’t it?

Iona lifts her shoulders up and down. “I didn’t have many friends, either. This makes up for it, though. And maybe, maybe Ser Gilmore _doesn’t_ count, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to have friends,” and she thinks of the Alienage, of the way her friends’ mothers turned their eyes away, as though her choice to keep her own daughter was a disgrace, “because everyone deserves to have friends. You know?”

“There weren’t many children around Highever,” she says, “most people chose to raise their children far from the cliffs. Not to mention the constant battles against raiders, slavers, and others. Qunari dreadnoughts are a common sight. No one wants to raise a child near that. Except my mother, but she was raised on the deck of a warship, so she grew up with worse.”

Iona gently shoves her elbow into Lady Elissa’s ribs. “Your mother sounds like she was a lot of fun.”

“She was a raider, and one of the best. They called her the Sea Wolf, she was so feared by Orlesians.” Elissa smiles a little, thinking back on all the stories. “The Waking Sea is littered with the wreckage of the ships she sank with the _Mistral_. Father always said she was the real hero in the family.”

Lady Elissa’s eyes have glazed over with memory, and Iona thinks it best to let her remember in peace for a little while. There are still things to do before the wedding; the windows needs opening to let in some fresh air, at the very least.

It doesn’t surprise her that her lady has pirate blood. If anything, it’s a little funny how much it shows through in their everyday interactions. Lady Elissa is a little too wild for Denerim’s cobbled streets, and Iona has no trouble at all picturing her standing on a cliff with a salt wind twined through her dark curls.

The windows come open without too much of a fuss. Iona doesn’t realize she’s humming the sea shanties Iain used to love so much until she’s already halfway through _Hammers and Strings_. She hiccups a little laugh, a little sob; it’s both and neither. She allows it. It’s going to be an emotional day, and her lady is going to need her solid. If she gets the tears out now, all the better.

But the tears don’t come.

And Iona’s not surprised by that, either.

(Truthfully, not much surprises her, anymore. Amethyne’s oddness gets more accurate by the day; yesterday, her daughter told Lady Elissa that His Majesty was going to bring her an ocean present with lunch, and not two hours later, the king offered her lady an exquisite string of pearls to wear for the wedding [and then fled, flushing bright red, because King Cailan is all of twelve years old apparently]. Her daughter had grinned smugly.)

The knock on the door startles her from her thoughts. Lady Elissa is still deep in memory, and so Iona opens the door to Soris, nervously shuffling his weight back and forth.

“Already?” she asks. Maker, she has no idea where the time’s gone.

He nods once. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

“No,” she murmurs, smiles at him tired. “It’s alright. Lady Elissa is just… nervous, I think. And a little sad. We’ll be out in a moment, thank you, Soris.”

Elissa looks up to see the exchange. Poor Soris, he’s gone from elf expecting to be married to being conscripted to the queensguard at breakneck speed. Now he’s been sent to deal with her. She shouldn’t be surprised; she isn’t, actually. There is no way in all of Thedas that Gil would have come to do this.

She stands up, brushes her hands across the dress to smooth out any wrinkles. Orlesian silk and Antivan lace—what would Mother say if she saw her now? But Mother is not here, and fate awaits whether she likes it or not. “I am ready. Thank you for waiting, Soris.”

Lady Elissa looks, well, resigned. Soris is fairly certain this isn’t what a bride is to look like at all, despite the finery. Brides are supposed to be happy, aren’t they? Not that he would know. Valora hadn’t exactly been the happiest, nor was she actually ever his bride.

“We should get going,” he says, steps aside to wait for them.

Iona reaches out to touch her lady’s wrist. Lady Elissa looks up at her, blinking, startled with it, and it’s all Iona can do to restrain herself from wrapping her arms around the other woman to give her a half-second of peace. Instead, she says, very softly “Whatever you do, my lady, know that I’ll follow you. You won’t be alone.”

“Even if I take all of you and run away to Kirkwall?” Elissa says, unsure of whether or not that’s a joke. She thinks it is. Maybe. It’s a little hard to think with the nerves in her body sparking up like lightning has struck them all at once.

“Yes,” Iona says, and simply links her fingers through Lady Elissa’s, their fingers a lattice of sinew and bone, sinew and bone. She seems to be doing that a lot, lately, the hand-holding; so many people need it so very badly. “Even then.”

“Good,” she responds, meaning so much with that one word. “I’m ready now.”

Iona doesn’t ask, this time, and tucks her arm through Lady Elissa’s without a word. The wedding hall is three floors down, and they’ve all run out of time. If halfway down, her lady decides to run, they’ll run and not look back. She’s prepared for that eventuality—Amethyne has a rucksack with enough gold and valuables in it to buy them passage to the Anderfels, if they wanted—but Fereldan is home.

And secretly, Iona thinks that Lady Elissa is exactly what the country needs in a ruler.

“Come, my lady,” Iona tells her, gentle soft. “The people won’t wait much longer.”

Lady Elissa Cousland takes a deeply fortifying breath in, and then down they go.

 

—

 

_Maker, what am I doing_?

Cailan stares at himself in the mirror, in a guest room just outside of the hall where he’s to be married, for the _second_ time. He’s got his armor on. But it’s not the hardy, battle-scarred silverite chainmail that he’s used in practise for as long as he can remember. No, it’s some massive plate monstrosity commissioned especially for this, dragonbone and so _heavy_ he can barely stand it.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d been counting on Elissa disappearing.

Because she didn’t want this anymore than he did, she’d made that perfectly clear right from the beginning. Elissa’s beautiful, Maker, she’s beautiful, and he knows he could love her, probably, given the chance. And for a while, it had been alright, but Cailan…

Cailan misses Anora.

Cailan misses Anora like an old wound, faint ache in his chest, like a phantom limb itching in the night. He misses her smile and her quiet wisdom and the way she never took any nonsense from anyone. Anora had been the one constant, always, his whole entire life—she’d been his older sister and his best friend and eventually his wife, though that last one had never been particularly important. But she’d been _there_ , and now she’s _not_ ; now, she’s off to Gwaren, back to a castle she hasn’t set foot in since either of them were children.

It’s not _right_. It’s not _fair_.

She’d been a better queen than Cailan had ever been king; he doesn’t pretend that he’s had anything to do with really _ruling_ , because they both always knew he’d never have been any good at it. He doesn’t enjoy making decisions that affect other people, never has, and Anora understood that. She understood _him_.

And now she’s gone.

Cailan misses her so much he feels a little sick with it.

_Maker_ , he thinks again, _what am I_ doing _?_

Gil can hear the king pacing back and forth. There is a solid door between them, but not so sturdy to keep out the sound of Cailan’s voice muttering to himself when he wanders too close to the door. If anything, he’d say the king wants this about as much as Lissy does.

Maker, that’d be just their luck, wouldn’t it?

Now if only Soris will come fetch him with the news that Lissy’s finally made up her mind and they’re heading for Kirkwall as soon as possible. They should have left before now, could have been in the city long before now, could even have had an army by now. It would be easier to attack Highever from the sea. It will not have the benefit of weakened defenses as it did for Rendon Howe.

The harbour is a nightmare to navigate, but Lissy is Lissy and she’s the Sea Wolf’s daughter. All they need is—Soris, nodding grimly from the end of the hall before disappearing. No, not grim. Grim is firm, prepared. This is…

Pity?

Oh _Maker_. She’s going to go through with this.

He leans his head back against the cold stone of the wall and takes a deep breath, listening close for the pacing king. Then he turns, stands at attention, and knocks on the door.

Cailan jerks to a standstill.

It’s time, then.

He swallows around the lump in his throat, and goes to open the door. He’d forgotten: if this happens, Anora can’t come home. “Hello, Ser Gilmore,” Cailan says, and tries not to sound as miserable as he feels.

Andraste have mercy on them all, Gil thinks. Cailan looks like he’s heading for the gallows. Lissy’s a hellion sometimes, but she’s not _that_ bad. “Your Majesty,” he says, “perhaps try to not look like this is your execution.”

“Oh,” Cailan says, grins guiltily. “Oh, it’s not about her. It’s—me, I guess. Elissa’s not the problem.”

“The nobles won’t know that, sir.”

“I know,” he sighs, and searches inside himself for the cheerful idiot mask. It’s in there somewhere, if he can just find it. “Let’s not keep the Grand Cleric waiting, she’ll have my hide.”

Gil coughs to cover a laugh. “If you ruin this by looking like a kicked puppy the whole time, it’s not the Grand Cleric you’ll need to be worried about.”

“Have you met the Grand Cleric?” Cailan asks. “She’s terrifying.”

“Have you met Lissy?” Gil says, “Or Iona, for that matter.”

Cailan considers, because Ser Gilmore has a point. “They’re both quite terrifying, too.”

(He decides not to ask about the nickname, because some things are still too close. Some things are still too personal. Lissy… that’s one of them. For all that she’s going to be his wife, it’s not his place. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Cailan’s never been the jealous sort; jealousy takes far too much energy that could be better spent throwing eggs at nobles, if he wanted to achieve the same effect and have at least a _little_ bit of fun.)

Lissy isn’t in the hall when they walk in. Gil stays by the side door they enter from. Not a bad position at all. Soris is stationed directly opposite him, looking out of place in shiny new armor, and he can see Iona’s pale hair towards the back of the gathered nobles. It would be better if Dane where here; he recognizes several of the noblemen, knows them to be friendly with Howe and the Mac Tirs.

Maker, please, _please_ don’t let anyone try to hurt Lissy the one time she’ll not have any kind of armor on.

And then the nobles fall silent. Gil doesn’t look up, stays focused on the ground, just listens to the room for any sign of trouble. He can guess what they’re seeing. Lissy’s beautiful covered in mud and blood. Now, though, she must be stunning, dressed in Orlesian silk and Antivan lace, Rivaini pearls in her hair and around her neck.

This is it, then.

At the very least, Iona thinks that she’s done a decent job with what she has. Lady Elissa might have no armor, but she’s got decent boots and a very lovely dress, and if anyone tries to ruin this, Iona will throttle them herself. She can see Soris and Ser Gilmore, each at the edge of the dais where the Grand Cleric stands next to His Majesty; neither of them look very happy. In fact, _no_ one in this hall looks very happy.

She thinks she catches a flash of bright armor somewhere in the crowd; the Warden-Commander must be here, then, and Kallian, too. If things go belly-up, they’ll have two more on their side.

But then the doors are opening, and there’s Lady Elissa.

King Cailan Theirin grins as brightly as he can manage.

She is beautiful.

She’s also probably going to kill him.

Cailan watches her walk up the aisle, all by her lonesome. The Grand Cleric is silent underneath the swell of the music and the simultaneous intake of breath from the gathered nobles, and he can’t help but remember the last time he’d been through this, and Anora had strode up and murmured _let’s get this over with I was writing to Bann Alfstanna_ and he’d had to fight not to laugh like a fool.

When she reaches the dais, he offers her a hand.

She doesn’t take it. There’s a long moment between them, an unbroken thread of time that Cailan will remember forever after as the real decision. She just looks so _scared_ , and so _trapped_ ; there’s a howling pain to her like a caged animal.

He doesn’t withdraw his hand, because that would set the nobles off.

But he does smile at her.

And then he nods, just the littlest bit, towards the door. _Go_.

Her mind goes _blank_. It was hard to breathe before but now it’s like her lungs are made of iron, incapable of swelling or compressing in the motions needed. Everything has gone soft, a little, and it’s hard to see anything but Cailan. Somewhere a the back of her mind, she thinks his armor is ridiculous—it’s too big and likely too heavy to be of any use in close combat, should something happen.

But a second, much louder, thought overwhelms her.

He’s going to let her go.

If she turns and runs, he won’t follow.

She’s _free_.

Free to leave, to take her little makeshift queensguard and Iona and Amethyne and everything to Kirkwall, to Starkhaven, to Tantervale, to Ostwick, to _somewhere_ that isn’t here. Beneath her dress, her right foot moves just a tiny bit in Gil’s direction. She doesn’t dare look, but she knows he’s there because he’s always, always there. No matter what happens.

Even if—even if she stays.

Andraste in a sea squall.

Cailan just had to give her a choice, didn’t he?

She closes her eyes, and if there are tears, she won’t acknowledge them. When she opens them, sees him still holding out his hand, the decision is made. She places her hand in his, and says goodbye to any chance of getting to the Free Marches.

Soris has never really seen a human wedding before, but he's fairly certain the bride is not supposed to hesitate as long as she does. But when Lady Elissa takes the king's hand, he's not sure who looks more surprised: King Cailan or Ser Gilmore. 

He thinks there may have been something to what Iona said about Ser Gilmore loving Lady Elissa very much. The knight's face is shadowed, haunted, almost, but still he stands perfectly at attention. Maker, what a mess this is.

Okay, but what even is this.

Kallian doesn’t like weddings.

Kallian has _never_ liked weddings.

So why in the name of the Maker’s missing testicle is she sitting in the _imperial palace_ Chantry hall, at a wedding? And also, why is Soris not paying attention to her, that’s literally his job. At this rate, Kally is going to throw something at his head just to shake him out of whatever existential ennui has settled in on him.

_Tits_ , Kally has to remember to use her brain voice, not her actual voice, because the Grand Cleric has an evil eye like she’s never seen in her life, and swearing loudly in front of one of the Maker’s own dedicates is frowned upon. _Especially_ while said dedicate is recounting the Chant of Light. There’s probably eternal damnation or something, if she does that.

But there’s no one here she knows (other than Soris and—the Queen-to-be? Queen-almost? The lady in the white dress with a habit about knives that Kally thinks she might quite like? Something like that—Lady Elissa, and her cousin is too busy contemplating his shoes, and Lady Elissa is up on the dais getting married), and harassing the nobles while they all sigh at the pageantry of the day might be in bad taste, even though they really do bring it on themselves, what with all the gems and the fancy clothes and the… _hairstyles_ , if a person could even call them that. That one lady has, are those _birds_? Live birds? In her _hair_? Who _are_ these people? Don’t they have anything better to do? Don’t they have _lives_?

For a minute, Kally is so taken aback that she’s gobsmacked into silence, even in her own head. Is this really how nobles spend their time?

Maker, it’s no wonder they’ve no sense, no one’s ever told them not to wear live animals in their hair. That’s just asking for trouble. And this is a _wedding_. It’s got all the trimmings. There might even be cake. It seems that kind of party, doesn’t it, the King can’t get married without cake. What’s a wedding without cake?

Weddings without cake are weddings in the Alienage, actually. Sugar is expensive. But even at home, the people getting married usually look a little happier than this somber bunch. She can’t help but think that if her wedding ever looks like this, she might as well off herself right then and there.

Except, of course, that her wedding _had_ looked something like this. Kally remembers being just about as excited to marry Nelaros as Lady Elissa looks to be marrying King Cailan.

…Maker, that’s depressing.

And so Kally, in all her wisdom, decides that the best thing to do is to prod Duncan, because if she’s lucky, he’ll let her sneak out and rob the palace blind while everyone is distracted.

“Old man,” she mutters in his ear. “ _Old man_!”

“Silence,” he says, low and quiet as possible. This girl has a fighting skill almost on par with Lady Elissa’s, but none of the tact. She will make a fine Warden, yes, but never Warden-Commander. He will have to find another recruit, then. That cannot be difficult in these times. So he makes the decision there, if only to distract Kallian. “We will leave for the Brecillian Forest as soon as this is over.”

“For the Dalish?” she murmurs.

“For the Dalish,” he confirms. They must have a hunter or two they can spare. He will not be able to take a mage from them, sadly. Keeper magic is almost always more useful than Circle magic. “Then the Circle and Orzammar.”

If he takes one recruit from each—Denerim, the Dalish, the Circle, and Orzammar—then surely he will find _someone_ who can lead the Wardens of Fereldan once he cannot. If nothing else, it will bolster their numbers enough that they may attract more volunteers. But Kallian does not need to know that, nor does Lady Elissa or King Cailan.

“Do they even let elves into Orzammar?” Kally wonders, very quietly. If the Grand Cleric could shoot lightning bolts from her eyes, she would. Kally grins widely at her, and flutters her lashes.

The Grand Cleric is staring right at them. Duncan sighs heavily. He had been hoping to avoid her ire, but it seems there is nothing that can be done now. So he ignores the Cleric and instead responds, “They allow Grey Wardens in, regardless of race.”

“Neat,” she says, and stretches out her grin even more, her teeth pearly white behind her lips, “I always wanted to see Orzammar.”

“It is a very impressive place,” he muses, “not as impressive as some other thaigs, but you will likely not see those for many years to come.”

“Alright,” Kally says. She sits on her hands. Dwarven thaigs, the Circle Tower, the darkspawn; she’s going to see it all, and then she’s going to see the rest of the world, too. And then maybe she’ll come home, and bring Soris and Ahni all sorts of presents.

(She just has to live through it, first.)

It’s a lovely ceremony.

At least, Cailan thinks it must be. He doesn’t think he’s going to remember much of it; the Grand Cleric is still philosophizing about Andraste’s graces, or something.

He hasn’t let go of Elissa’s hand, yet. And she’s not pulled away. It’s nice; her palm is warm and dry, the kind of hand you’re supposed to hold on cold winter days to chase away the chill. They’re both staring at the ground with their heads bent forwards like they’re praying, and maybe they’re supposed to be. But Cailan isn’t, and he figures if Elissa is praying, she’s not praying to the Maker for a happy marriage; she’s praying that this doesn’t last.

Because this is it. This is the end. Once they’re married, they’re _married_ ; they’ve got to do the whole _secure-the-line_ thing, and then they’ve got to get ready to fight a war. Ostagar and the darkspawn in the south have weighed on his mind for so long, now, that Cailan’s not sure he’ll ever be able to think of anything else.

But maybe they’ll have a little time, first, and he’ll be able to take her somewhere away from Denerim for a while. They don’t really _know_ each other.

Cailan catches Elissa’s eye, and tries for a smile.

The Grand Cleric claps twice, two strangely sharp sounds that echo and ring in his ears, and then they’re both kneeling for the crowns. Slim golden circlets, the same ones his mother and father had been crowned with when they’d been married. They’re not heavy, but looking at them, Cailan sometimes thinks that if someone had to put them on, they’d break their neck with the weight.

Memories are like that, after all.

There’s a distant rumbling that suddenly explodes into cheering as he and Elissa stand as one. He’s supposed to kiss her, he thinks dazedly, but he doesn’t really want to force that right now.

He presses his thumb to the corner of her lips, instead. It’s almost the same.

“Ready?” he asks her.

_No_ , she almost says. Almost because there’s a part of her that’s not ready, will likely never be ready. She doesn’t dare look at Gil, Soris is standing at attention like a good little soldier, and looking for Iona would require turning around to face the crowd.

Which leaves Cailan, who is just patiently waiting for her.

It’s oddly calming, knowing she’s in charge of what happens next (even if she really isn’t and everyone in this room knows it). Calming too is that he didn’t kiss her. Sod the nobles; it’s one thing to kiss him in the privacy of the palace after spending an entire night looking over laws and trying to figure out how to explain she thinks his most trusted advisor is very likely a traitor. It’s quite another to do something like that in front of the Grand Cleric and what must be every nobleman in Denerim.

She blows a stray strand of hair away from her eye. “Ready as I shall ever be.”

Cailan nods, lets his fingers drop away from her face. “Let’s go say hello to our people, then.”

Together they walk towards the doors, and still, he holds her hand.

 

—

 

Kally doesn’t… doesn’t have a lot of things.

She’s never been a particularly materialistic person, but she knows that that’s only because there was never _money_ to have things. In the Alienage, everything is used and re-used and re-used again, until it’s all used up. Nothing goes to waste.

She has a feeling that being a Warden is going to turn her into a materialist, indeed.

But first:

The letters are set out neatly on the bed. There are three of them—one each for Ahni, Uncle Valendrian, and for her father—because she’ll not have a chance to say goodbye in person; she leaves Denerim at first light. They’re not particularly long, for goodbye letters, only a single sheet of creamy fresh parchment each. They’re folded twice into a little square because she has no idea what to do with envelopes or sealing wax.

Kally figures she’ll give them to Soris, and she’ll trust him to get them where they belong.

Duncan finds Kallian standing over the bed, three folded sheets of paper spread across it. Letters, he presumes. It is not the first time he has seen such a goodbye, though something deep in his bones suggests this is the last time. He knocks on the doorframe once to alert her to his presence.

She does not turn.

“Do you wish to deliver them?” Duncan asks, quiet.

“We don’t have time,” she shrugs. “As long as I can say goodbye to Soris, it’ll be alright.”

He nods. “That can be arranged. Is there anything else you need to do? I can wait.”

“No, old man,” Kally turns her head to flash a grin over her shoulder. “We’ve Wardens to find and darkspawn to kill, don’t we?”

“The darkspawn will still be there,” he says, “but the people you are saying farewell to may not be here if you should return in the future.”

“We don’t say goodbye,” Kally tells him. “It’s bad luck.”

She doesn’t really know how to explain that saying goodbye is the same as sending someone off to die. It’s much better to say nothing at all—and she knows, she just _knows_ that her father won’t be able to resist crying into her shoulder. Kally doesn’t think she’ll be able to survive that; she’ll want to stay.

She does not know, he has to remind himself. She does not know what the Joining entails, that being a Warden is a death sentence even if she does survive everything that the taint may throw at her.

“This is enough,” she says, quiet, her fingers trailing along the straight-cut paper edges. “If I don’t come back… well, I’ve said what I needed to say.”

“If you are certain,” is what he says. He does not speak of other things, of his mother and brother, of leaving in the night with only a letter left behind. He does not tell her that he knows not what became of his family, that they will likely never know his fate. He will not tell her that this is a regret that cannot be washed away through force of will alone. “You should get some rest. We have an early morning ahead of us.”

“Of course,” Kally says. There’s something strange and melancholy in the old man’s voice, and though she has to tip her head up to look at him properly and curses her genetics for it, she thinks that he’s not been happy in a very long time. “Do you know where Soris is?”

“I would suggest the training area to the western side of the palace,” he answers. “The third floor is likely not a pleasant place for him to be, right now.”

Kally doesn’t doubt that.

On the way out the door, she pauses only for a moment, to throw a casual look over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she says, and then she’s hurrying away. It’s not enough, but it’s better than a goodbye.

The practise yards are empty, this late at night.

And there’s her cousin, swinging a blunted sword at a straw dummy, lit up like a firework about to go off with sheer delight. He’s not bad, he never has been; something about natural talent. The sword is weird, though, nearly as long as Kally is tall, and he’s not got a shield.

“Soris,” Kally calls. He ignores her. “Soris, are you deaf?!”

The shout throws off his balance enough the sword damn near pulls him off his feet when the swing turns towards the ground. It sinks deep into the dirt when it strikes and he blinks once, twice, places the voice and curses. “Damn it, Kally! Don’t do that!”

“What’s with that? It’s bigger than I am, you’d put a Qunari’s eye out,” she says, and moseys across the practise yard like she has all the time in the world. “Where’s your shield, Sore?”

“It’s called a greatsword,” he says, pulling the sword out of the ground and balancing the blade across his hands. “Ser Gilmore suggested I try it to see which weapon set I prefer. Said something about it changing how I’m trained.”

He isn’t entirely sure where Ser Gilmore found it, but the weapon is a beauty. Balanced and powerful, and much easier to wield than trying to synchronize the movements of both a longsword and a shield. He can already imagine fighting with it. It’s big enough and heavy enough that a strong swing would take it through several opponents, not to mention that weight could be used to end a fight before it really begins. He shrugs and holds it out for her to examine.

Probably not the wisest decision. Kallian Tabris and unfamiliar sharp metal things rarely ends well for bystanders, even those of her own blood ( _especially_ those of her own blood). But this sword is bigger than her (possibly heavier too, not that he’ll mention that, her head is big enough as it is) and he somewhat suspects this is the one kind of blade she can do no damage with. Thank the Maker it exists.

If only he’d had it years ago.

“Are you actually offering me a blade?” Kally asks, eyebrows rising to her hairline. That’s, well, that’s a compliment, coming from Soris. But as she eyes it up and down, she realizes something. “Oh, come on, that weighs more than I do, there’s no way I can pick it up!”

He grins, and offers it a second time, and she’s not about to _disappoint_ him. The hilt is dull metal wrapped with leather for a better grip. Kally narrows her eyes at it, and mentally commands the thing to be lighter than it looks. She grabs hold of it, prepared for the worst.

The worst isn’t enough.

And Kally falls over, a stream of expletives so vile as to not be repeated following her down.

And Soris promptly follows her to the ground, felled not by the sword, but by laughter. “I can’t believe you actually took it!”

“You’re the worst,” Kally squawks at him. “Get it off me, Soris, it’s too heavy and I can’t breathe!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, sitting up and reaching for the sword. He figures that between the Warden-Commander and Uncle Cyrion and, well, _everyone_ , he will be very dead indeed if anything happens to her on his watch. “You’re always so stubborn. I only meant for you to get a better look at it.”

Kally grumbles something foul about his person underneath her breath, and then she’s quiet. She tilts her head back, hair colourless against the dirt. “Hey, Soris…“

“What?” He’s brushing the remaining dirt off of the sword. It likely doesn’t matter; Ser Gilmore told him to test it out and probably doesn’t expect it to come back pristine, but still. Soris has never actually been _given_ a weapon so nice for his own personal use. It seems wrong to let anything happen to it, even if it’s only a little bit of dirt.

“I’m leaving,” she says.

She’s always so dramatic. “You don’t have to,” he says, not looking up. “I was just messing with you.”

“No,” she laughs, weird and high. “No, Soris, I’m actually _leaving_. The old man wants to go at first light, and I didn’t say no.”

_Oh_. Soris’s hand stops over the sword. It’s that kind of leaving. He knew this would happen, but it’s still… “Isn’t that a little soon?”

“I dunno. Maybe,” Kally murmurs. She can’t look at him. “Look, I won’t have a chance to—to talk. To Ahni, or Uncle Valendrian, or Ada, even. So I—I wrote some letters. They’re, um, they’re right here.”

He stares at the letters in her hand. “Kal,” he says, low and serious, “what are you doing?”

“We don’t say goodbye,” she says, mouth twisting painful. “You know that. And I might not—if I don’t—I can’t be sure, Soris. No one can.”

“That’s why we say we’ll see each other again.” He should have expected this, he thinks. “You need to see someone to say that. A letter is no different than a goodbye.”

It’s worse, actually. A letter is goodbye without a goodbye. It’s an apology, and apologies are not a _thing_ with Kallian. A letter is like her saying she’s leaving and never coming home. It’s a cowardly thing and, well, it’s _Kally_. She’s brash and brave and this really isn’t like her at all.

“Soris,” she says, and Andraste take her, she can feel tears sloshing behind her eyes. Her voice sounds wet. She swallows around something awful; a howl, an abyss. “ _Please_.”

He can think of exactly one other time where Kallian cried. It was only the once, just after Aunt Adaia died, and _only_ the once. It knocks the breath out of him to see the tears in her eyes, shimmering like stars. Well, shit. He sets the sword aside, and reaches out for her, pulls her close and says into her hair. “Stop that, you dork. I’ll take the letters if you really want me to, but you have to come back, understand? If you don’t, I’ll drag you out of whatever pit you’ve found yourself in and make you apologize to all of them.”

Kally nods into his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut. “Just, just make sure they get them, Soris, and I promise I’ll come back.”

“I will,” he promises, silently adding _and I’ll be here waiting_ at the end.

 

—

 

The Queen’s Wing is a tomb. Silent as a grave, there’s not a single other person conscious; Amethyne is asleep, and has been for hours, Dane her pillow. The great Mabari’s even got his eyes closed, for once in his life, silly creature.

And Iona is sewing.

The fireplace crackles, throwing a wealth of light across her work. There’s still so many dresses to alter… Lady Anora has good taste, so that hideous cupcake of a wedding dress must have been someone else’s design. Deplorable.

Needlework takes concentration. It takes her _entire_ concentration, because it takes measurements and precise stitching and _care_. It does not, however, turn off her ears.

Andraste, but the silence does get to her.

Iona abandons her work, and heads for the door. Perhaps Soris is outside, and they could talk for a little while, pretend that tomorrow is going to be exactly like yesterday, like Iona will have the chance to slam the Queen’s Wing door in King Cailan’s face one more time. Or maybe her brother or Amethyne or his family; there are a lot of things they haven’t talked about yet that she knows they’ll discuss in the coming days. He’s a good person, and an interesting one: she didn’t much think they existed, anymore.

But when she opens the door, the guard posted is Ser Gilmore.

There is no name for the look on his face but _heartbreak_.

Iona gentles. “Hello, Ser Gilmore. I was just about to make some tea. Would you like to join me?”

He pauses at the sound of Iona’s voice. It’d been so quiet, save the sound of the polishing rags against the blank shield. He—he should stay out here, he knows, but the silence is...

Gil says nothing, and sets the shield aside. When she retreats to the fireplace, he follows, if only because there is nothing else to be done.

The china with the Highever crest is the one she pulls out, because she has a feeling that this is going to be a very painful conversation. Not for her, no, because she thinks that Lady Elissa and King Cailan may be very good for each other, in the long run.

Ser Gilmore, on the other…

Ser Gilmore is going to need delicate handling.

Little curls of steam rise from the tea as she brings it to the table. He’s just standing there, staring at the wall a little vacantly, like he’s got no idea what to do next.

“Sit down, Ser Gilmore,” Iona says, mouth quirking up. “It’s not comfortable to drink tea standing up.”

He does as he’s told, if only because he’s not sure he can stay standing much longer. There’s a reason he was sitting on the floor to polish the shield. The tea is a Marcher blend, he notes, somewhere in the distant reaches of his mind. Ostwick, maybe? Lissy never cared for it as much as Fergus did, he knows. “Thank you,” he breathes.

“You’re welcome,” she says, and looks down as she pours herself a cup. She keeps her gaze down, even when she speaks. “There’s no delicate way to ask this. Are you alright?”

He breathes out and the sound is maybe a laugh maybe a sob. He doesn’t care to think about it and there are no tears, so it does not matter. “I don’t know.”

“You always knew this was coming, did you not?” Iona does look up at him, now, because there’s nothing kind about what she has to say, but it is honest. “You must have done, she was a Teryn’s daughter. You must have known that eventually she would marry.”

“It’s Lissy, and she’s a raider’s daughter with a raider’s soul,” he says. “There was talk of her becoming Teryn instead of Fergus, yes, but there was also talk of her taking over the _Mistral_. One would require a good marriage. The other did not.”

“Do you really believe Bryce Cousland would have allowed his only daughter that?” Iona asks. “It’s not a safe way of life. Many die.”

“The _Mistral_ may have started out as a raider’s ship,” he explains, “but today it’s the flagship of the Cousland navy. They work closely with Kirkwall to patrol the waters between them. Tevinter slavers have always been a problem, and increasingly we’ve had a problem with dreadnoughts coming too close.”

“Ser Gilmore,” Iona says, and there’s steel, there, in her eyes and in her spine. “You sound delusional. I do not mean to be cruel, but you know as well as I do that that has always been a false hope.”

“Maybe.” Maybe she is right. She probably is, he thinks. “Still don’t have to like this. She deserves someone who loves her, even if it’s not me.”

“He may, yet,” Iona says. “But His Majesty is not the issue, here. Loveless marriages are very common, royal or not. It’s not anyone’s place to say those marriages are worth less, and you—you are from Highever. Things are different, there.”

“Very different, I’d say.” Gil sighs, staring at the fire and thinking of the warmth of Castle Cousland. “Lissy comes from a family where no one in her life had a loveless marriage. None were arranged, either. This is an anomaly.”

“No,” she says, “It’s not. _Highever_ was the anomaly, Ser Gilmore. That is not the way of the world.”

“Maybe. It’s better than here,” he says. “This place is so cold, even when it’s hot out. No one seems happy, no matter where you look. Maker, even your Chantry is unwelcoming. How does anyone live here?”

And Iona laughs, because he is funny. “That is the most sheltered thing I have ever heard, Ser Gilmore, and I’ve heard the King talk about a clean end to the darkspawn. You can’t really think that all places are like Highever, you can’t.”

“I know they aren’t, Lady Iona,” he says, “but not all places are like Denerim, either. Remind me, if we ever end up travelling, to take you to The Hanged Man.”

“You have no idea how the things you say sound, Ser Gilmore,” and she’s laughing again, because Maker, really, The Hanged Man? Kirkwall’s Hanged Man? _Varric’s_ Hanged Man?

A smile starts, then, a bit hesitant, but still there. “You know what The Hanged Man is? What’s a proper lady like you doing knowing about a place like that?”

“I grew up two minutes away from Denerim’s blue light district, Ser Gilmore. A tavern, dank as it may be, is still much nicer than The Pearl,” she tells him ruefully, shaking her head. “I’m no innocent, you must know that.”

“Hey now,” and he’s smiling proper now, “Tethras is a right bastard, but he’s an honorable one. The Hanged Man’s a better place with him around.”

“I never said it wasn’t,” she says, prim. “Varric Tethras is comparatively a saint, with not a bad word for anyone.”

He swallows the rest of his tea in one go. “Now how in Andraste’s holy fire do you know Varric Tethras?”

“That, Ser Gilmore,” Iona says smugly, sipping her tea, “is a very long story.”

“I think,” he says, pouring another cup of tea, “that we have the time, my lady.”

 

—

 

The library is _almost_ as nice as the one at home. Almost, because their collection of books is sorely lacking in some of the more exotic titles her family had collected during their time as a free city. The things that can be found in Kirkwall’s Lowtown—

(—or Darktown, for that matter, but that’s another story for another time)

It also doesn’t have Aldous and she’s finding that libraries are lonely, empty places regardless of how many books one might have if it does not have an Aldous.

This one has a very strange collection of books. There are treatises on the nature of certain magics, phylacteries, various herbs and poisons. There’s even books on the various uses of dragon’s blood, as well as another on how to craft things from high dragon hide. At the same time, she’s finding histories on the elves, both city and Dalish and before, on dwarves and Qunari, and all the nations of Thedas.

And a most interesting collection of fiction. She traces her finger along the spine of _Hard in Hightown_ , trying her very best to not laugh. Andraste, how _that_ one made it here, she’s not sure she wants to know.

Oh, now what’s this? She’s never seen this one before. She tilts her head to read the title in full: _The Search for the True Prophet_. She removes the book from the shelf, flips it open to find an exploration of the possibility that Andraste was no prophet, but rather simply a powerful mage. Finding a seat by a window, she curls up and begins to read by the flickering firelight.

Cailan watches Elissa settle down with her book.

She’s still wearing her wedding dress.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable?” he has to ask. He has to. Because she can’t just sit there with her knees up to her chest in his favourite window nook, her skirt cream-coloured in the firelight and around her in a pool like it’s _nothing_. This can’t be his life. It _can’t_ be.

The words on the page go a bit blurry, her attention broken. She looks up to find Cailan leaning against a table by the fire, armor ablaze with light dancing across the metal in the most _hypnotic_ pattern. She blinks thrice and goes back to the book. “Like you’re one to talk.”

Cailan rolls his eyes, because she would, wouldn’t she.

“I wouldn’t be wearing it if I didn’t have to be,” he grumbles, glaring down at it. It’s stupid and _hot_. “I can’t get it off on my own, platemail doesn’t work like that, and I didn’t want to—”

He stops.

No, he can’t ask that of her.

Lissy closes her eyes, sighs a sigh so deep she feels it in her toes. She has two paths: continue reading and pretend she didn’t hear him (which will likely end in her falling asleep here and scaring some poor maid half to death come morning), or she can help him remove the armor.

That path has a few endings, not all of which she’s certain she wants to think about.

But—that armor is downright cruel. Honestly, who thought that was a good idea?

“Come here,” she says, closing the book.

“You don’t have to, I can find Chamberlain—” he breaks off again when her eyes narrow and he says. “Er. Right.”

The book makes a faint _thump_ when it settles on the windowsill. “Would you get over here before I change my mind and leave you to suffer?” she says, perhaps a bit more sharply than intended. “What were you thinking, keeping this on for so long?”

“I couldn’t find anyone who’d know how to get it off,” he says, sheepish.

She stands up, skirt swishing around her legs, and finds herself at a loss. “Oh,” she breathes, finds that she’s staring at something quite unfamiliar. Maker, why does anyone need armor this heavy? It’s held together in the oddest manner she’s ever encountered, and she remembers the Qunari armor Father acquired for training purposes when the dreadnoughts first came.

He’s tugging on one of the gauntlets when he realizes she’s not moving. “What?” he blinks at her. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid,” she says, “that I have no idea how this works. Highever does not use armor such as this.”

“Oh, well, I can talk you through it?” Cailan shrugs, and the jangle of metal plates moving against each other is loud in his ears. “I just—can’t get it off on my own.”

“That’s absolutely impractical. Why would anyone create armor the wearer cannot remove?” She glowers at the offending metal. “What would happen if you were to fall into water? It’s a death sentence,” she says, then sees the expression on his face. “Sorry. Just tell me what I need to do.”

“If you fall into water, you’re dead,” he says, grimacing. “But we’re land-locked, so it’s not so bad. Here, gauntlets first.”

It does take the two of them, because platemail is _heavy_. The gauntlets come off first, the vambrace and the elbow cop with them, then the rerebrace and the pauldrons and the besegew. Sabaton and greaves and cuisse, then, because the cuirass is one piece, and best left to the end. Why? Because this is Cailan’s life, and it is hard. Getting out of the cuirass is a squirmy uncomfortable hell. It involves nearly dislocating his shoulder. Why is this happening.

“Help,” he says. “Please.”

“You idiot, be careful,” she takes a close look at what he’s trying to do and resolves to have a chat with the palace blacksmith. “What do you need me to do?”

“Just—hold it? Then I can get my arm out.”

“Hold it,” she says, “where, exactly?”

“Here,” he says, taps the left side of the fauld, and doesn’t notice that she’s turning red. “Unless you want to undo the ties up here, and I can hold it?”

“Which would be easiest?” and she doesn’t stutter thank the Maker she doesn’t stutter.

Cailan shrugs. “It’s not light. Do the ties, Elissa, it’ll be easier for both of us.”

She pauses at the use of her name. She can’t quite recall if he’s ever said it without ‘Lady’ before it, but there’s something not-quite-uncomfortably familiar about the use of her name alone. “Just hold still,” she says, hands finding the ties and beginning to undo the complicated knots. Well, complicated for a land-person. Mother made it her mission to see to it that both Elissa and Fergus can sail like an expert. She works slowly to give him time to adjust to the changing weight, and in silence undoes each tie.

Only for him to remove the completely illogical cuirass to reveal… _chainmail._

“You idiot!” Her arms cross over her chest, scowl settling across her lips. “How did you even manage to stand up, let alone wear that all day?”

Maker, that’s a breath of fresh air. He can actually move his arms, again! He’s halfway through yanking the mail over his head when what Elissa’s said registers. Cailan colours faintly. “Had to be sure it fit.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” she says. “You cannot wear this for anything other than ceremony. It’s simply too heavy. If you got hurt, a medic would have a hell of a time trying to remove it.”

“It’s not bad, actually,” Cailan says, considering. The chainmail slithers to the ground and he near collapses, he feels so much lighter. “I’ve worn heavier. But, uh, about that, well. Don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Have much choice about what?”

“Wearing it,” he says, blinking. “It’s for Ostagar. When I go.”

Elissa counts down from five in her mind. “Absolutely not. You’ll get yourself killed wearing that.”

Cailan snickers. “What, did you think I’d pick this on my own?”

“I thought the person responsible for that monstrosity they sent me was behind it,” she says, shuddering at the memory. “That armor is impractical at best. It’s too flashy, too heavy, and there’s barely any flexibility at the joints.”

“Lissa, it’s _supposed_ to be flashy, that’s the _point_ ,” he’s grinning, now, because she’s still red, but now it’s with indignation. The girl’s such a sea-fighter, it’s almost insulting, she’s probably never worn anything heavier than Inscribed leather, and that’s _nothing_. “Platemail’s meant for defense, the point is that even if a sword catches me in the gut, it’ll slide off. That’s what the mail _does_.”

“It’s still impractical. Platemail can still do it’s job and not put its wearer at greater risk than necessary,” she huffs. “There’s a reason officers in Highever do not wear anything distinguishing, you dolt. If opponents don’t know who they are, then that gives the officer more time to survive and keep his soldiers under control. If an officer can be identified, that makes him the primary target.”

“It’s a morale boost, Lady Elissa,” he says, smiling still. “Any soldier can look and find me any minute. It’s so they know they’re not alone.”

“That is absurd,” she says, shakes her head. “If they know you’re there ahead of the battle, then there is no need for them to _see_ you. They’ll know you’re there and that’s all that matters.”

“No,” Cailan shakes his head, and the history comes back, filtering through the years. “Listen, what do you know about my grandmother?”

“A little,” she says, shrugs. “Not much. Highever may have been allied with the Theirins, but our borders with Fereldan were closed during the occupation.”

Cailan nods. Yes, he remembers that; Highever avoided Orlesian rule. Their whole army had been sea-based, an armada of ships. So she wouldn’t know.

“My grandmother,” he begins, “she had red hair. Bright red, though my father said sometimes it was blonde. But in every story I’ve read, her hair was like fire, and she never wore a helmet. Her hair helped her men fight better, because they could see her. They could see that she _cared_ , that she wasn’t just some far-away princess demanding their loyalty and they go to their deaths for her without a reason.”

“That’s stories,” she says, “and Orlesians. This is darkspawn. I rather think they’ll be more like cats and go ‘oh, shiny, must kill’.”

“I think you’re giving them too much credit,” he laughs. “Can they even see colour?”

“Shiny is not a colour,” she responds, moving to sit on the edge of the table, feet dangling above the floor. “How do you know cats can’t see colour? They still like shiny things, don’t they?”

“That’s crows, not cats,” Cailan says. He turns into her because he can’t help it, drawn moth to flame.

“You obviously don’t know any cats,” she responds, carefully enunciating the word _cats_.

“You’re a dog person,” he says, mouth twitching. “What do you know?”

She glares weakly. “My Nan says dogs are monsters and only let cats around her. Better mousers, apparently, but Dane still had to get the giant rats.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he says. Cailan doesn’t know when he put his hands on her thighs, but they’re there now, the only barrier between his skin on hers the flimsy silk of her dress.

She can feel the warmth of his palms through the silk and it really is quite distracting. Still, she’s Elissa Cousland, defiant to the end. So she sits up straight and stares him right in the eye. “I know how to sink a Qunari dreadnought and how to kill a man thirteen different ways with my bare hands,” she says. “What do you know, little prince?”

“Prince?” Cailan asks, drawing back just enough to look her in the eye. Her lips are soft and red in the firelight, and Maker, he _wants_. “We were just crowned, _Your Majesty_ , or have you forgotten already? And I know you can’t answer a question—” and then he presses forwards, hips between her knees, mouth at her ear, “—and I don’t think you can _think_ , right now, but I don’t _know_ that for sure.”

“Kings are not fools,” she says, “and you’ll rip the dress if you’re not careful and then Iona will have to kill you.”

“Kings are always fools, love, they’re the best jesters. Why do you think we have queens?”

“I think the better question,” and she reaches down to pull the skirt up around her knees, lest he harm the silk because Iona really will kill him if any harm comes to it, “is why queens have kings, if they are such fools. Sounds like more trouble than one man can be worth.”

“Oh, probably,” Cailan says. He brushes his lips thoughtfully over the lobe of her ear, tries to avoid touching the dress at all because he likes his bits where they are, thanks. “But once in awhile I think queens must put up with fools, if they like to be kissed.”

“I would think a queen can kiss whomever she chooses, if she has no king,” she says, smiling, “and a king does sound like so much trouble.”

“Well, you’d be right,” he says, nods somberly against her cheek, and it doesn’t work at all because Cailan wouldn’t know how to be somber if it hit him in the face. He keeps it together via sheer force of will, and the strangest unwillingness to lose.

“But it would be a tragedy,” he continues, mouthing his way across her jaw. “What if the queen picked someone who didn’t know how to kiss? What then?”

“She’ll just have to find someone else,” and she pushes him back. This dress is more precious to Iona than pretty much anything short of Amethyne and there is this odd, cold feeling at the back of her mind that if it doesn’t come off, something Very Bad will happen. “Could you help me with this?”

“...Are you sure?”

“I really am concerned about the dress,” she says, turning around so he can see the buttons running along the line of her spine. “Iona angry is not an Iona I’m inclined to see, and she spent so long dismantling that fluffy nightmare I was originally given to create this one. But yes, I’m sure. You might also want to lock the door if it can be, just to be safe.”

“That’s a lot of buttons,” Cailan says, a little dumbfounded. How long did it take to put it on? Eight hours? Twelve?

“It’s not that bad,” she says. “It only took a couple of hours to put on, and most of that was Iona fighting with my hair. The dress was designed to be easy. It’s part of why she’s so proud of it, I think.”

“Weird,” Cailan says, because he can’t really understand why anyone would want to wear clothes that take longer than a few seconds to pull on in the morning. The line of her spine is a visible thing, with those buttons, and suddenly he’s got an image of divesting her of it and putting his mouth all over.

_Well_ , he thinks. “Door, lock, okay, yes.”

She smiles. “Door, lock, yes, please.”

“You don’t need to tease,” Cailan tells her, but the lock’s already clicking beneath his hands and he thinks he might be shaking, a little bit, and Maker that’s embarrassing. _Get it together, man_ , he tells himself, and turns back towards her as fast as he can.

She’s backlit in the fireplace. The curve of her cheek is a dark thing, orange-red light bleeding down her to turn her all to gold.

_Oh_ , Cailan thinks, and swallows hard.

She looks over her shoulder back at him, finds him staring at her like—like that Nevarran sailor they rescued from a dreadnought that came too close. They’d taken him to the Chantry and the way he’d looked at the statue of Andraste…

Cailan’s staring at her the same way, and it strikes like lightning from her heart. She isn’t that beautiful, that impossible, but he looks like he’s been at sea so long that being on land and finding something _real_ again is like the grace of the Maker himself lighting the darkest bits of the soul. It’s this wordless wonder, and it makes her want to run but at the same time, she wants to see just how far this rapture can go.

And so she turns back to face the fire, reaches behind her, and undoes the first of the buttons at her waist.

“Stop that,” he says. “Let me.”

“Just be careful,” she says, falls silent because there’s a slight tremor to his hand. If only there were a mirror here, something so she could _see_ him. But there is only the fire, and the feel of his hands along her spine as the gown slowly comes loose.

She’s got a dusting of freckles along her shoulders. She’s very pale, is Elissa, like she’s not spent most of her time in the sun. Or maybe it’s just that she gets pale when the sun goes; wintertime is like that, and—

“What in the Maker’s name is this?”

“The kirtle?” she asks. “It’s the supporting piece that makes the silk fall right? It’s much easier to take off, I swear.” Her hands are at the ties, pulling them loose with a practiced ease until the garment falls to the floor, leaving her in only a silk chemise.

“And I thought _armour_ was complicated,” Cailan says fervently, a little glaze-eyed.

“Why do you think I prefer armour?” she says, so quiet. Despite the fire, there’s a chill seeping through the thin silk, raising goosebumps along her skin.

“Because you’re always getting into everything,” he laughs into the nape of her neck, the chemise pushed over one shoulder. “It’s incredible, two days in the capital and you’ve turned the Alienage on it’s head.”

“Did not,” she breathes, tries to think straight but lips, neck, train of thought _not moving_. She’s not quite sure which of them has moved closer, but she’s maybe fairly certain there was more space between them than this. And the chemise—has it always been this _thin_?

“Did too,” Cailan murmurs. He runs his thumb down her spine, from the knob at her neck to the dimples at the small of her back, and she’s the one shaking, now, and isn’t that nice. She’s a hard thing, all lean lines, but she’s soft, somehow, too, and he needs bare skin, he needs bare skin against bare skin _right now_. He shucks his shirt and then he’s against her, her spine through sheer fabric up against his chest. Her shoulder gives beneath his teeth. “Can I take this off?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but from her lips down to the bottom of her throat, it’s all gone dry as the Anderfels. So she nods, closes her mouth, lets him pull the loose silk over her shoulders until it’s on the floor around her ankles. “C-cold,” she manages, because it is; there’s gooseflesh all along her arms. The fire, for all its strength is too far and the palace stone is breathing winter into the air and Cailan—he’s too far away.

He hooks his chin over her shoulder. “Hello there,” he says. “Do you want a blanket?”

“You’re warm,” and she moves closer still, pressing against him until the warmth from his skin sinks into hers. “Stay close?”

“I can do that,” Cailan says, arms curling around her waist. “Is the queen in the mood to be kissed?”

She shifts, then, moving to turn slightly in his hold so she can kiss him. She’s got one arm raised, fingers threaded through his hair and breaks the kiss just long enough to say, “The queen is not in the mood to be teased.”

“Isn’t she?” he asks, and tries for solemn. “Then I suppose the fool must not tease.”

She responds by finding the tie in his hair, pulls it loose, gold strands brushing against her shoulder. One foot lifts up, tracing along his lower leg to hook behind his knee.

“You are a menace,” he tells her wonderingly.

Elissa’s lips curl up into a smirk. Cailan lets her pull him down.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: disclaimed  
> dedication: to fall. hello darkness my old friend.  
> notes: the wedding chapter! the wedding chapter!


	6. turning saints into the sea

They have  _ defiled _ the library.

Chamberlain doesn’t ask for much, really. All he wants in life is the ability to care for the Theirin line, feed his staff, and know precisely what is happening in the castle every minute of every day. 

But this.

He doesn’t deserve this.

Lord Cailan and Lady Elissa have  _ defiled _ the library. They’re curled up together in one of the window nooks—Chamberlain mours its death quietly, because he’s going to have to set it alight, this is a  _ waste _ —drowsing in the early-morning sunshine. Neither of them are wearing any clothes.

This is the  _ worst day of Chamberlain’s life _ .

“Ahem,” coughs Chamberlain.

There is a very long silence. Neither of the rulers of Fereldan make any sort of coherent acknowledgement. In fact, Lady Elissa curls deeper into the pillows, and Lord Cailan curls more securely around  _ her _ .

“ _ Ahem _ ,” coughs Chamberlain again.

No one is going to get up.

This is terrible.

_ Someone is going to pay _ .

Chamberlain floats out of the library, very careful to lock the door behind him. No, it wouldn’t do for the King and Queen to be found here, even though it  _ is _ the morning after their wedding, and really no one would be surprised. But it is  _ so _ tawdry, and people will talk. He supposes he brought this on himself. He didn’t send someone in to interrupt them when he had the chance.

And now he’s got to deal with nonsense. Shenanigans in the library. He never thought he’d seen the day— _ hoped _ he’d never see the day, truly. It is unacceptable. Lady Rowan would be so ashamed, he is never going to forgive himself for failing her.

Chamberlain returns with a pitcher of ice water and two thick towels, freshly warm from the laundry. They’re both going to be so entirely soaked.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesties,” Chamberlain sighs at them. He’s going to have to burn the blanket. “You’ve left me no choice.”

Chamberlain overturns the pitcher of ice water, and steps back to avoid the splash.

“Aldous!” Elissa shrieks, because  _ really _ ? So she fell asleep in the library, so what? It’s not like—like she isn’t in Highever. Right. Wedding, Cailan, Denerim,  _ Howe _ . Then that’s—that’s not Aldous.  _ Oh _ .

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” Chamberlain says, gravely. “Would you perhaps like a towel?”

It slowly dawns on her that by ‘Your Majesty’, he means her. “I—” she starts, but can’t finish, throat closing up around words she can’t say just yet and so she pinches Cailan’s arm  _ hard _ .

“Ow!” Cailan jerks, flailing a little blearily. “Chamberlain, when did you get  _ violent _ ?”

Chamberlain is staring at him. There’s water dripping down his face. He isn’t in bed. And there is—someone warm and soft tucked up against him, who is  _ also _ dripping wet. Elissa, who’d been the one to inflict such unnecessary early-morning damage. She’s also very naked, and very annoyed.

Cailan thinks:  _ oh _ .

“Good morning,” he says, grinning sleepily at her, and entirely content to not move. “Shoulda warned you, Chamberlain’s the worst, says the water’s the only thing that’ll get me up.”

Elissa— _ can’t _ . Just can’t. Highever clings at her heart, crushes her lungs. She just can’t do this. Not now. So she does the only thing she can. She takes the blanket, wraps it tight around her like it’s the only armour in the world, and  _ runs away _ . Iona should still be in the Queen’s Wing. She just...needs Iona. Needs Dane. Needs Gil but can’t because Gil is Gil and that has to stop because  _ this _ . 

It doesn’t dawn on her until much, much later that she left Cailan naked as newborn in the library with Chamberlain.

“Well,” Cailan says, a little dazed. Elissa… run off. That’s…  _ new _ .

“Your Majesty,  _ please _ ,” says Chamberlain, as he delicately drops both of the towels on Cailan’s head, “have some  _ decorum _ .”

“It could have gone worse, you know!”

“I don’t see how,” Chamberlain sighs. He doesn’t point out that Lady Elissa has  _ run away _ , which is about as bad as it could  _ possibly _ have gone. But of course, Lord Cailan is utterly useless in the mornings, and he’s still grinning like he’s not all the way awake yet. Frankly, he probably isn’t. Chamberlain has no idea why he’s so fond of this boy, he is a travesty. “Stay here, m’lord,” Chamberlain says. “I’m going to find you some clothes.”

  


—

  


Lissy came came through the Queen’s Wing like a storm, disappearing into her bedchamber. She only opened the door once, for Dane, and it’s been locked since. The chamberlain came by, solemn, and returned her clothing and boots without a word before disappearing again. He doesn’t ask what happened, doesn’t need to. Doesn’t particularly want to know, either. He’s trying to take Iona’s advice to heart and that means not asking because not caring means not knowing. 

Only, he’s not sure how to not care about Lissy. 

So he does what he’s certain Fergus would do, instead, because if they can’t be Gil and Lissy as they were, then maybe, just maybe, they can be something like family instead.

(They can’t be queen and guard. He knows that already, knows it in the deepest parts of his soul. There’s simply too much history, too much caring, too much  _ everything _ for them to ever be just that. So it’ll have to be friends, maybe like siblings, almost, but never just queen and guard.)

“Do I need to kill him?” Gil asks, through the door, because this is exactly what Fergus would do. 

There’s a soft, garbled sound inside that he’s pretty sure is a laugh and it works in lieu of a spoken answer. At least this means she’s maybe smiling, will maybe be okay. 

That’s all that matters.

Iona can’t help it.

She sighs aloud.

Poor Ser Gilmore, he really has no idea how to go about this  _ giving-himself-some-space _ thing. Maybe she’d not been quite clear enough; she does have a problem with clarity. The next time they chat, she decides she’ll try to reiterate it, if only because the look on his face is still somewhere between  _ misery _ and  _ heartbreak _ .

She sets her needlework down on the settee, and makes her way to where Ser Gilmore is standing outside the closed door.

“Lady Elissa,” she says to the closed door, “is there anything you need?”

There’s no response, of course. Gil sighs, and says softly to Iona, “Let her be. She’ll come out when she’s ready. Not the first time this has happened, and I doubt it’ll be the last.”

Really, what can anyone expect with a firestarter like Lissy? 

Iona glances up at him, face unsure. “Really? She doesn’t need to talk?”

“Not when she’s upset,” he says. “Last time someone made her cry, she locked herself in her room until the next morning and it didn’t look like she’d been crying at all by the time she came out.”

“If you say so,” she murmurs. Iona shakes her head to herself—but then, she’d never been the kind to bottle emotion up the way Lady Elissa is. Before, everything used to make her cry. Now… now is a different story. There aren’t as many things Iona cares enough about to cry for.

“Lissy isn’t like most people?” he says, thinks of seashells and storms, swords and fire. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Mmmm,” Iona hums, “I suppose I’m just adjusting. But—” she shrugs a little, and smiles, “—she’s been good to me. And, well, I have an eight-year-old daughter. I have dealt with worse.”

“I suspect your eight-year-old is easier to deal with than a crying Lissy, no offense.” He turns away from the door, heading back for the sitting room. Soris took the morning off to finish up some business in the alienage and Dane is standing guard at the white door. If nothing else, maybe he can get a training schedule drawn up for the elf today.

“I doubt Lady Elissa’s thrown a tantrum because she knew I’d be taking away her favourite doll as punishment in two weeks and six days,” Iona says, voice wry. “You may be right, though.”

It’s… odd, between them, Iona thinks. That might be respect in his gaze, but they still don’t know each other all that well, and for all that they’ve talked—and talked they have, hours and hours the previous evening, about things Iona never really thought she’d discuss with anyone, ever—she’s still an outsider, somehow. She will be for some time yet.

It’s silly to be worried about something like this, Iona scolds herself. It could be much worse!

Gil’s mouth quirks up in something like a grin. “No, can’t say she’s ever done that, but she’s been pretty bad before. Pretty recently, too. Did I tell you how I met Tethras, last night?”

“No, you never said,” Iona tells him, hesitates, then pokes him in the side. “Turnabout’s fair play, Ser Gilmore, I think you owe me a story.”

“Take a seat, then,” he says, “because I might not be as good a storyteller as that short bastard, but I promise to do my best. Now, let’s see. It was about three years ago? Two, almost three? Teryn Bryce and Teryna Eleanor were invited to a ball in honor of the Viscount of Kirkwall’s son turning eighteen. It was meant to find him a bride, I think, because they decided to send Lissy and me with Fergus and his family.”

Maker, Kirkwall had been something else during that. “Lissy and the boy did get along, after a fashion, just not in that way. Sometime during the ball, they decided to sneak out and explore the city.”

“The Viscount of Kirkwall? A  _ bride _ ? In what world?” Iona interrupts him to ask, because  _ really _ , Lady Landra had been invited to a party of the Viscount’s some years ago and Iona with her, and the boy had spent the entire night wincing every time a woman came near him.

Gil laughs. “I take you’ve met Seamus, then?” From her cringe, he assumes so. Maker, that boy and the impressions he leaves on women. “Well, he and Lissy in Kirkwall after dark. If you know The Hanged Man, you probably know what that’s like. So the ball begins to wind down and someone notices they’re missing. Jokes abound but Fergus and those who were smart enough to realize the boy is sly started getting worried. Then Fergus decides to send me out to find them. Mind you, I’d been to Kirkwall before, but only in Hightown and hadn’t been travelling around the city at night.

“Enter Varric Tethras. I got into a scrape with some gang in Lowtown. Sharps Highwaymen, I think he called them? It was just outside The Hanged Man and I’m surrounded by thugs when this dwarf kicks open the door with a crossbow damn near as big as he is and my attackers just  _ vanished _ .”

“Why am I not surprised,” Iona says, has to cover her mouth to hide the grin.

Gil leans against the wall, just beside the window. She’s smiling, wide and honest. Such a strange sight, it seems, for the way things have been lately. But this, telling stories like this? It makes things hurt just a little less, he thinks. Yes, this is good. 

“He held his hand out and told me I was a bloody fool and if I’d needed help, I should have just asked,” he says. “When he finds out who I’m looking for, he stomps off and about ten paces out, turns back to ask if my dog-brained self was coming or not. He drags me all over the city, from the docks to Hightown, through parts of Lowtown I didn’t know existed. Finally we end up in these old mining tunnels he called Darktown.”

And here Gil has to swallow hard because he  _ remembers _ , remembers the way Darktown had been with the refugees mixed in with the criminals, all trying to hide from the guard and all so terrified when they’d catch sight of his armor and shield. “We found them, anyway, towards the sea, watching the ships pass below. By the time we’d gotten them back to the Keep, Fergus was angrier than I’d ever seen him. He blew up at Lissy. Apparently someone decided to tell him what Kirkwall is like once the sun goes down, and worse, someone, somehow, found out Darktown was involved.”

Darktown… no, Iona’s no idea what that’s like. Lady Landra had only sent her out once on her own in Kirkwall, to fetch some flowers from  _ somewhere exotic, there’s a dear _ . She’d only had time to glance out at the city, really, and hadn’t gotten even a glimpse of Kirkwall’s alienage. After they returned home Iona had been glad to have avoided it; the Revered Mother of the Bannorn had given her pitying looks for  _ days _ .

“I suppose Ser Fergus didn’t take Lady Elissa’s escape that well, did he,” Iona says.

“That’d be putting it lightly,” says Gil, “not that he got to do anything about it. Lissy liked his lecture less and proceeded not speak to him until after we’d been back in Highever for a month.”

“Siblings are funny, that way,” and Iona remembers Iain come flying into her room and ducking under the bed, cackling like a crow about some templars come to the alienage for a mage boy, and the way the fear had been so loud inside him but it hadn’t stopped him from throwing a rock and then running like the wind regardless.

Her lips have curled up at the memory. She doesn’t remember giving them permission to do that, oh dear.

“That they are,” he says, thinks of the five little redheads he left behind. How many nieces and nephews are there now? “Do you have siblings?”

“Not anymore,” Iona says softly, looking at her hands, smiling still.

She doesn’t seem inclined to tell, and he won’t press. Losing a sibling is like losing a limb. Highever had been so lonely in those early days. “I’ve got five. Two older brothers, one older sister, one younger brother, and one younger sister. Haven’t spoken to any of them since I became a squire for Teryn Bryce.”

“You should write them,” she says. Maker, what she’d give to be able to write to Iain. “I’m sure they’d like that.”

“My youngest sister was two when I left,” he laughs, thinks of the way his sister's’ hair had shone in the summer sun, running around with mud on her round cheeks and weedy flowers in her chubby little hands. Their land may be little more than a glorified farmland, but it’s beauty is second only to Highever, for him. “I doubt she remembers me.”

“You’re impossible, you know that?”

He’s reaching down to pick up his Highever shield for one last polish before going into storage when she says it. Standing back up, he considers it for a moment. “I’m breathing, Iona. Don’t think I can be impossible.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Iona murmurs, with a thimble-kiss tucked into the corner of her lips.

The thought he’d had that first day in Denerim rises once more to the front of his mind: Iona is actually quite pretty. And as fast as it’s there, he pushes it back down. Tea—tea is good. Tea and stories go together almost as well as ale and stories.  _ Almost _ , and he’s fairly certain ale and Iona is a very, very bad mix. 

So tea. He finds the Highever set, puts it out, kettle’s on the fire. Tea is always good, Teryna Eleanor always says. 

“Impossible can mean a lot of things, my lady,” he says, finally, looks everywhere but at her.

“And in this case,” Iona says, “it means you are being deliberately obtuse.”

He shrugs. “If you say so. I left my family when I was six.”

“And you haven’t been back? Not even once?”

“No,” he says. “There was never any reason.” Go back? No, no, that’s not a thing he could have done, he thinks. Time went by so quickly in Highever. There was rarely any time to think of his family, really. Always something to do, somewhere to go. Always Li—no, not that. He’ll not think of that, not anymore. 

“Then maybe you should,” she says, tilting her head. “Maybe not now, things are still too unstable, but… soon?”

“I don’t...I don’t even know if it’s still my father’s,” he says, quiet. The fire dances, strong and hale in the hearth. “It could be my brother’s the lord now. My sisters are likely married and gone. There’s likely nothing left for me.”

She’s gone silent. Odd, really. Iona’s soft-spoken, mostly, and pleasant, but silent is not a thing she is. He can see her out the corner of his eye; she’s staring at her hands, looks like, lost so deep. Such a sad thing to see someone like that, especially one so future-focused. 

The kettle steams and he fixes them tea. It’s a nice blend, a rare one from Rivain. Teryna Eleanor loved it more than any other. When it’s done, he puts his hands over hers, unfolds the long fingers, puts the steaming cup between her palms, and waits.

“Nothing left…“ Iona puts the cup to her lips, closes her eyes. There’s nothing left of Highever, nothing left of Lady Landra, nothing left of the place where she grew up. There’s nothing left of Iain, not even that stupid coin he used to carry around between his knuckles. It’s all gone, and it’s not been a bad thing. Painful, yes, but not bad.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean it to—hurt you. I shouldn’t have said.”

The tea is still too hot. “It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt, not really. Hasn’t for a long while.”

“Still,” says Iona. She sets her tea down to look him in the face, “it wasn’t my place. I’m sorry.”

Family is a hard thing, after losing so much of it. But she’s found that, like old wounds, the longing for them doesn’t really ever go away; it ebbs and leaves a person alone until they’re not expecting it, and the flare of pain is worse for the forgetting. The sun in through the window is high in the sky; Iona  startles when she watches the shift of emotion lit up across Ser Gilmore’s face: first surprise, then pain, then melancholy. She has work to do, but she doesn’t think Lady Elissa will mind if she puts it off a little longer.

Ser Gilmore looks like he could really use some fresh air. Iona finds herself thinking that it would do them both some good, in fact.

“After our tea,” she says, “would you like to go for a walk?”

_ That _ gets his attention, if only because it’s something he remembers. Yes, of course. It’d been what his mother said when it had been decided he would be sent to Highever. It was walking alongside the golden fields, ready for haying, that she’d told him. 

But it’s not his mother, only Iona, and he rather thinks Iona is the type to tell him any life-changing news directly. Possibly bluntly, too. She does seem the sort to not dress up the bad in an attempt to make it easier. 

A walk—a walk sounds nice. He looks out the window at the high sun, sees blue skies and if he’s very lucky, there’s a slight breeze. “I think I’d like that. Dane can handle things by himself for a while.”

Iona sets her cup down. It’s still nearly full. A waste—but she’ll drink it later, she’s sure, when Lady Elissa needs to talk. Iona is not above reheated tea. She’s lived through much worse than a cup of reheated tea in her life, but she doesn’t think Ser Gilmore will last much longer like this.

“Then shall we go? The sun won’t wait,” she says, smooths down her skirt as she rises. “We might not even get into trouble, if we’re lucky.”

He grins, wide and honest. This particular tea was always better cold, anyway. “We shall,” he says, stands and offers his arm, “and you shall have to show me what it is about this damn city that makes people love it so much.”

  


—

  


_ Clothing is a struggle _ , Cailan thinks, trying his very hardest not to be annoyed. Chamberlain means well, he does, but he forgets that Cailan has spent most of his life doing whatever he can to  _ avoid _ kingly clothing and occasion. The breeches are gold-threaded, and would probably look much nicer on someone who could appreciate them.

Cailan, however, is not that person.

The thought comes unbidden:  _ Mother would be so amused _ .

His throat goes tight.

Oh.

He’d forgotten how much he missed her.

Rowan Theirin is a legend in her own right. Tall, grey-eyed and pale, dark-haired and cool-headed, the books all say she was every inch a born ruler. She was fair and quiet and always listened before she spoke; she died far too soon, and, beloved by all, the people of Fereldan mourned when she passed.

But that was not the woman Cailan had known.

The woman Cailan had known was quick with her words and quicker with her temper. She’d been a smirking thing, always, with a sense of humour as dry as a desert, and there was never a time Cailan can remember where he’d been able to sneak something past her, whether it was a dirty stable-boy to play with or a sweet tucked into his pocket. She’d always known when he was about to get into trouble, his mother, and she’d show up without fanfare to bring him to task for it. He had never needed anyone to tell him he was going to get caught; just the thought of the look on his mother’s face had been enough to quell any wrong-doing. She’d been silver and cold and always prepared to tell his father exactly what she thought of his decisions; Cailan thinks, now, that his parents’ marriage had not been a happy one.

But despite all of that, she’d also been the one to tell him stories and kiss his scrapes and to teach him his letters, to explain that sometimes when you don’t know how to say something out loud, the best way to say it is by writing it down. She had been the one who sang the lullabies, read the books, let him crawl into bed with her when he’d had a nightmare.

She’d been his mother, and Cailan had loved her with the mindless intensity of childhood until long after the day she’d died.

He thinks, now, that she’d have liked Elissa.

Cailan stares unseeingly at his desk. It had been hers; in fact, this whole room had been hers. This whole floor, even. He’d grown up running through the Queen’s Wing to find her here, bent nearly double as she penned something that had never been any of his business, and he’d interrupted her just because he could.

Lady Rowan Theirin had always had time for her son.

Cailan wonders what it says about him that his mother is still very much his favourite parent, and she’s been dead for nigh on two decades.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t really want to know.

Cailan wanders over to the shelves behind the desk. The books here are bound in leather, the titles embossed in gold along the side. His mother had liked gold, he remembers that, though she’d always worn silver because it matched her eyes, and she’d always been very keen on looking her best. And that brings him back to the pants and their gold thread, and why he’s wearing them in the first place, which brings him back to Chamberlain, which inevitably brings him back to his—Elissa.

He drops into the desk chair with a sigh, and covers his eyes.

Elissa.

_ Maker _ .

He wants to touch her  _ all the time _ .

And now she’s gone and closed herself in her rooms, and that’s right, isn’t it, he ought not have pushed last night. It’s just that he can’t help it, he looks at her and thinks… Cailan doesn’t even  _ know _ what he thinks, because the mere sight of her mucks his brain up. And he can’t rightly say  _ why _ : for certain, she’s not the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, or the most graceful, or even the most noble.

But there’s something— _ magnetic _ about her, and every time Cailan catches himself looking, he realizes that even if he could look forever, it wouldn’t be enough.

…If he’s like  _ this _ , how must  _ she _ be feeling?

Maker, he should go see if she’s alright.

Cailan’s up and out of his study before the thought even fully registers. She was upset this morning, but it’s probably passed by now. And if it wasn’t… well, he’ll leave her alone, then, because if he doesn’t, he’s liable to upset her more.

The door to the Queen’s Wing is unlocked.

Cailan blinks.

“Elissa?” he calls. “Elissa, are you in there?”

Dane starts at the sound of the door opening, a growl building at the back of his throat. He can’t quite place the scent—wait, no. This, the blonde bouncy one. Not the little one, the big one. He stands, stays close to the floor, growl a constant rumble through his body. Slowly, so slowly, he creeps toward the source of the scent. 

It’s standing towards the door, looking about. Dane moves carefully, waiting until it steps more fully into the room to circle around behind it. The growl builds as his jaws open, ready to bite.

“Hello, Dane,” Cailan says.

The Mabari’s lips curl back, revealing the sharp teeth in fully detail. 

“Well, that’s terrifying,” Cailan tells the Mabari honestly, because it is. “I just want to know if Lady Elissa’s alright, and then I’ll go. Can I talk to her?”

Dane considers, then closes his mouth and stands up straight, growl ceasing. But he does not leave. His mistress is not… no, he won’t let this one through. The loyal and the maid could not get his mistress to talk, what use is this one?

He places his head low against the bouncy’s legs and starts to push him towards the white door.

“Dane, it’s important,” he tells the Mabari. “Really, I just want to make sure she’s alright, and then I promise I’ll go. Swear to the Maker.”

Except Dane caught his mistress’s scent when she returned. This one was all over her, and there was the sharp tangy smell of tears. If this one made her cry—the growl starts to build again. 

“I know it was my fault, that’s why I’m here!”

Hmm… an admission of guilt? Dane remembers the brother, the nephew, even his mistress, all apologizing. The bouncy wants to speak? To make things better? 

The growl fades once more and Dane snarls but not at the bouncy. This is difficult. His mistress does not want to be bothered, and the loyal told him to let no one through. But his mistress—

He can hear everything that occurs, if he sits here. So he does. And stares at the bouncy, hoping it understands that he will allow this. 

But if she cries  _ anymore _ , the bouncy will be bit and dragged out of here.

In pieces, if necessary.

“Thank you, Dane,” Cailan tells the Mabari quietly. He’s sat back on his haunches, and there is a look in his eyes that Cailan has no name for except the  _ threat of violence against your person _ .

(If he gets out of this alive, he is going to be surprised.)

Cailan weaves his way through the Queen’s Wing to knock very softly on Elissa’s door. “Elissa? Elissa, it’s me. Cailan. Sorry. Are you alright?”

Elissa stopped crying hours ago, listened to Gil and Iona leave, listened to Dane’s soft growl. She should have known he would come. 

Maker, married less than twenty-four hours and she’s already made a mess of it, hasn’t she?

But Highever—

It’s a dull ache, now, an abyss threatening to swallow her whole if she wanders too close to the edge. Is it always going to be like this? Start to get better and then one little thing reminds her of Aldous, of Mother, of Father, of Oriana, of Oren… Andraste, even  _ Nan  _ will make her cry, she thinks. 

Her lip is likely bruised from being bitten so many times, teeth sinking into it once more in a bid to hold back yet more tears. 

This isn’t proper for a queen. Nor for a Cousland, even. Mother always said the past is the past, and one loss cannot be allowed to decide the fate of the war. Slowly, so slowly, she clambers out of bed, every intention of telling the king to go away when she passes by the mirror. 

Andraste in a sea squall, she’s still wearing the pearls, though her hair’s gone a frightful mess around them. She looks like the sea-witch from Nan’s stories; the one who would turn a man to stone with her gaze alone. Tear tracks stain her face, eyes red ‘round the rims. There’s a tremble to her lower lip that shouldn’t be there, and the chemise she pulled on in a rush to be  _ covered _ is clearly one of Anora’s not yet altered. The former queen must have been quite tall indeed, and broader across the shoulders ( _ or larger in the bust _ , she thinks wryly) for the chemise to fall so loosely around her. The sound of it sweeping across the floor echoes, almost, in the silent stillness of her room. 

_ Deep breath, Elissa, it’s just Cailan, just _ —Maker, she can’t even  _ think _ of what he is to her. That is mortifying, worse than the Pentaghast Incident. 

(No, actually,  _ nothing _ is worse than the Pentaghast Incident but Elissa does not like to think of the Pentaghast Incident, really. No one does. And so it is demoted to something not quite as bad, a mythical thing to be compared to hyperbolically and  _ not _ acknowledged as actual history, let alone embellished or elaborated on in any detail.)

“Go away,” she says, weaker than she’d like.

“Oh,” he says, clears his throat a little. “I just, uh, wanted to make sure you weren’t—I don’t know. Is there anything I can do?”

“No,” except, maybe, go away and bring back Rendon Howe’s head on a pike. Possibly Loghain Mac Tir’s too. Elissa sighs, forehead against the door. This is a disaster. “Just leave me alone.”

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll be in my study. I’m sorry I made you sad.”

Oh,  _ Andraste in a bloody sea squall _ . He always has to do this, doesn’t he? Always has to give her a choice, always has to give her the power to direct whatever this mess is. “Wait,” she says, louder, sliding the lock open. “Don’t—” but she can’t quite get the words out. Doesn’t quite know  _ what _ words to say. 

How exactly is she supposed to explain what it’s like to lose your whole world and then wake up in something completely different that you really don’t want but are finding you really don’t mind all that much?

“Leave?” Cailan says as she yanks the door open. Oh, she  _ does _ look a fright. She’s also incredibly lovely, and he finds that he’s smiling at her, very softly. “There you are, I was worried.”

“I’m—” she starts, struggling with a word that’s really somewhat unfamiliar to her, “sorry. I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asks, brow furrowing. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

“I shouldn’t have run off,” she admits and takes a deep, deep breath. Maker, why is apologizing always so  _ difficult _ ? “It’s nothing to do with you, but that must have made it seem like it was. So I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, I don’t mind,” Cailan says, because he doesn’t, really. He hadn’t expected much else; that she stayed the night at all continues to boggle his mind, but he doesn’t think she’ll appreciate it if he says it.

He doesn’t understand, does he? It dawns on her slowly that he is just enough of a fool to think—oh, no. No, no, no. That cannot be allowed to stand. “It really wasn’t about you. The chamberlain just,” she says, slowly because this is making her insides wobbly in a way that makes her think she might cry again and that is  _ unacceptable _ , “reminded me of someone from Highever. He used to do the same thing, and I didn’t think I’d miss him this much.”

Cailan looks down at her. He forgets, really, that she’s actually quite slight; her presence takes up a room, but that might just be him. Her eyes are rimmed red and he reaches up to very carefully brush his thumb along the bruise-violet skin beneath the right one. “I’m sorry. That it happened, I mean, that it was—allowed. I’d kill Rendon Howe for you, but I know you’d much rather kill him yourself.”

Maker, she’s lost so much in so little time.

“I would, actually.” She leans against the wall, thinking of all the ways she’d like to kill Howe. “I would happily accept him caged and waiting for death, though. That would be nice, him knowing that I’m going to kill him but unsure of when or how.” 

He looks so earnest, like he’d actually do it. He’s just like a puppy, sometimes. No wonder Dane let him through. Damn Mabari probably saw him and thought he was just an errant puppy in need of training and who better than her? Sighing, she says, “You know, I told him my father considered him a friend. I thought he’d just been surprised, but now I keep hoping that it was guilt, that he’s unable to sleep, to live with himself after this. He actually tried to marry me off to Thomas, before you.”

“Isn’t Thomas Howe thirteen years old…?” Cailan asks.

“Yes,” she says. “Delilah insists there’s a brother several years my senior, but he’s never been mentioned by anyone but her and I’ve never met him. Honestly, I’m starting to think she just made him up to make her family sound a little nicer.”

“Nathaniel’s alright, actually,” he says. “Bit grim, though I don’t really blame him. He was shipped off to the Free Marches when he was twenty, haven’t seen him since.”

Elissa blinks at him owlishly. “He’s real? Actually real? And in the Marches? Delilah wasn’t joking about him being the more appropriate match, was she?”

“What, you don’t believe me?” Cailan asks, and realizes that he’s teasing. But it’s helping, she doesn’t look like she’s about to throw herself out of any towers, now. That’s a good thing, maybe the only good thing. “They used to stick all of us in a separate room and let us go wild. I met him a couple of times, honest.”

“I believe you.” If she sounds a little faint, it’s because she is. Delilah was telling the truth. Huh. Elissa had long since started to believe that Nathaniel was just a joke the only Howe daughter was playing on everyone. And then she realizes that she is standing in a too-big chemise still wearing yesterday’s pearls and being teased by the King of—her  _ husband _ , she reminds herself. He’s the King of Ferelden, yes, but also her husband.

That’s going to take a bit of getting used to. 

She reaches up to the pearls in her hair. “I know the dress was confusing, but do you think you could help me with these? My hair is a bit—well, it’s a bit wild, you see, and it usually takes more than one person to control it.” And she knows that letting him into her bedroom is probably a very bad idea, but this is starting to get uncomfortable and it does take some work off Iona’s shoulders. 

“Course,” Cailan says, grinning. “And sea air makes it worse?”

“Sea air, wind,” she muses. “Anything, really, that makes it move, dry up, or get wet.”

“So just anything,  _ really _ ,” and she’s rolling her eyes but she’s also moving out of the way to let him in, and Cailan goes because of course he does, as though he could do anything else.

The vanity seems like a safe place to sit, and there’s a mirror there to direct him if he does something wrong. Why is she shaking? This is not a nervous situation. This is just getting pearls out of her hair. Elissa sits down and takes a deep breath. “Good luck?”

_ Don’t be an idiot _ , Cailan tells himself,  _ do not be an idiot! _

(He is most probably going to be an idiot. She just has very nice—skin.)

The pearls are on some sort of—chain? Net? What  _ is _ this nonsense—string. Her whole head is a snarl of dark curls and glinting little pinkpricks. Cailan thinks of the stars, and swallows. But he’s gentle, and he carefully begins to unwind her hair from around the pearls.

“Let me know if I pull too hard,” Cailan mutters, concentrating hard. Maker, his fingers aren’t meant to deal with something so delicate. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She chokes back the laugh because  _ really _ ? “With hair like mine, you learn very quickly to not be tenderheaded.”

“Still,” he says. He’s lucky that Iona didn’t use pins. Anora’s pins were always a nightmare, and this net-thing doesn’t seem half-bad by comparison. It’s easier to find, but that just might be the colour of Elissa’s hair—the pearls are very obvious, nestled against the dark mass. They come out in long strings, and he’s looping it around his wrist without really thinking about it. It doesn’t even take all that long!

He has no idea what she was worried about.

“There,” Cailan says. “Done.”

_ Iona is a miracle worker _ , Elissa thinks,  _ Amethyne is not the only one with a little magic _ . That should have been far more painful and labor-intensive than it was. That delicate net had terrified her, initially. Something similar had been put in her hair once before; the hair had to be cut to remove it after it tangled so badly. She reaches over for the hairbrush, selects a small section of the mess, and begins to work through it. “Thank you, Cailan.”

“No, here, let me,” he says, and reaches for the brush before he can really think about it. “I can do it.”

The brush slips easily from her fingers.

It’s just that he does like her hair. There’s a  _ lot _ of it, far more than he’d previously realized, and is this what girls have to deal with all the time? No wonder they put it up, it seems like much more work than it should be.

But also, Cailan’s quite horrified to realize that he  _ cannot stop touching her _ .

Elissa can see her own surprised expression in the mirror and does her best to bring it under control before he notices. Slowly, she lowers her hand, folds them both together in her lap and sits perfectly still. If he wants to do this, fine, but really—

“Where did you learn to do that?” she asks. “Most men are usually completely baffled by how to use a hairbrush.”

“My mother taught me, and it’s not like I don’t have to brush my own hair,” he says. “She used to let me brush hers, especially when she got sick.”

“Sorry,” she says, “it’s just that men in Highever usually wear their hair short.” And she  _ had  _ noticed that his hair is long, the night before. “It just… straight hair doesn’t really count. It’s so neat and perfect all the time.”

“Does too count,” Cailan snorts, thinks of waking up to his hair standing on end in every direction but down. “You didn’t stay long enough this morning to get a good look at me, it definitely counts.”

She’s not—nope, she’s blushing. Definitely turning red from the tips of her ears down to her collarbone at the thought of this morning. Except, she is Elissa Cousland. If she is going to be blushing, then Maker damn her so is he. “Then we’ll just have to try again.”

_ Wait, what _ , Cailan thinks.  _ Did she actually just _ —?

Oh, she  _ did _ , and now she’s smirking at him in the mirror. Cailan sets the brush down, slowly, to give himself a few seconds to collect himself. It also brings him down low enough that his face is level with hers, and he can ask the question that’s been shouting loudly at the back of his skull for the last six hours.

“If we do,” he says, and in the mirror her eyes are trained on his, “will you run away?”

She’s grinning viciously, now, thinking of just what that would look like. Because, as she sees it, she has two choices: she can call for Dane to remove Cailan and bury herself in her own embarrassment with a bottle of good rum or she can finish this and potentially—

—well, that’s not the thought she’d been expecting. 

“It’s my bedroom. If anyone runs away it will be you and it will be with Dane nipping at your heels,” she says, defiant.

“I would, too, that Mabari of yours is frightening,” Cailan shakes his head, grinning ruefully. “What if I don’t want to run anywhere? It takes energy, Lissa, and I’m tired.”

“Dane can drag you out, if you really want to leave,” Elissa rakes her fingers through her hair, pulling the curls over one shoulder. “Or you can stay until I ask him to remove you.”

“No, being dragged doesn’t sound very comfortable. I think I’ll stay,” Cailan says, voice low, and then he drops his mouth to her exposed shoulder. She’s so  _ soft _ , Maker, he wants to put his teeth in her  _ everywhere _ —

Pulls back to rest his forehead against the nape of her neck and breathe, because that was a little morbid.

Every exhale runs down her spine and every bit of air sends trembles coursing out through her limbs. She’d never even realized that her back was— _ oh _ , well, very sensitive. She lifts her shoulder a little to get him to move, and looks at him very seriously before saying, “Please kiss me.”

“Where?” Cailan asks, just as serious. “Here?”

And puts his mouth back to her shoulder blade.

_ That little shit _ , she thinks. She sits still for as long as she can before standing up fast enough to send him stumbling backwards a step. The chemise is slipping off the shoulder he was just fixated on and she tugs it back up to her neck before grabbing a fistful of his shirt and very purposely directing him towards the bed. 

“Do you really want to know?” she asks, mostly for a stall because it’s finally sinking in that this is… not exactly like her. Well, no, it is, actually. Demanding, was what it was called. But teasing is not so much her normal. At least, she doesn’t think it is. This is different than she was expecting.  _ He _ is different than she expected. 

And that’s, well, that’s a little unnerving because she does want him. Very much so, in fact, and she thinks that if she kisses him now, her mouth on his, that she might try to devour him, after a fashion. Like she can kiss him, hold him near, and fold all of him into her and that’s a might bit, well,  _ intense _ . 

“Yes?” Cailan says, but it comes out a question. His breath’s gone out of him. “Definitely yes?”

He’s serious, eyes gone wide and dark and well, who is she to refuse when last night had been—well,  _ good _ . Elissa releases her hold on him, crosses her arms over her chest, and simply says, “Take off your shirt.”

  


—

  


The Brecillian Forest is still green and strong, this time of year. Duncan takes in a deep breath; elfroot and oak and fresh water mix in his lungs. This place is ever-changing and yet always the same, it seems. 

Ostagar must be successful, if only to save this ancient wood from the taint. Such a proud place should not be brought so low, he thinks. So few areas of such untouched wilderness remain in Thedas anymore, it seems. Those that do are unwise to travel in; containing dangers that make darkspawn seem an easy battle. 

He draws the horse up to a stop near a spring and dismounts. Fresh water and fish shimmering just beneath the surface. Yes, this will be a fine place to make camp before searching for the Dalish.

“Is this what plants look like in the real world? Andraste’s tits, that’s depressing.”

The ground is  _ soft _ .

The ground is  _ so soft _ . The ground is softer than her bed in the Alienage. She could sleep here, entirely comfortable, and not actually worry about bedbugs. This is a miracle. How is anyone ever sad about anything? What do they have to  _ complain _ about when there are trees and plants that aren’t  _ dead _ ?

Maker, this makes home even  _ less _ appealing.

“Yes, Kallian, it is.” It has been so very, very long since he has had to travel with someone unused to the world at large. He had forgotten, a little, what the constant barrage of questions could be like. “We shall rest here until we find a clan.”

Kally falls silent for a second, looking up at the sky through the canopy. The sun filters down gold here, green-gold, like the trees are lit from within. It would be spooky if it weren’t so beautiful, and for the first time in her whole entire life, she understands why anyone would leave to find the Dalish.

There’s something intensely peaceful about being this close to the trees.

“What—” and she struggles, a little, because she’s avoided asking about this since they left the city. Everywhere else was fair game: the dwarves, the humans, the other cities in Ferelden, the other  _ countries _ in Thedas, but the elves… She’s avoided the elves. “What are the Dalish like?”

“Proud,” he says. How best to describe the Dalish? That is a very good question indeed. Only once had it been asked of him before, surprisingly, and by another, albeit very different, young elf woman. He should send word to her, he thinks, if only to inform her of what is to come in the very near future. “Fierce, too, but less so than you. They are a calm people, for the most part, and secretive by necessity. They are unlikely to respond kindly to you, Kallian. Keep that in mind.”

“Why not?” Kally asks, because this, this is the crux of the matter. She’s never been scared of anything, but the Dalish… 

Kally is scared of the Dalish.

Duncan sighs, thinks back to that one difficult meeting between Fiona and the Dalish. “They do not think of your kind as elves. Not as they are. You may be elven of blood and body, but you are human in spirit.”

“Oh,” Kally says. She is so quiet. “I see.”

  


—

  


Lyna keeps her hand steady, watching fish flash beneath the surface of the stream, shimmers of red and green and pink. It’s calming, bowfishing is. The pattern of setting the arrow and waiting requires clearing the mind and body of stress, less a loosened arrow startle the quarry rather than kill. It’s a good day for it too. Wind is low, and the water runs clear. The forest is quiet as it can be around her, birds chirping softly and leaves rustling in the distance. She’s just far enough away from the clan that she can easily get back to them if need be, but far enough away that she can fish in peace. 

Not that any of them would disrupt her. They all need to eat, after all. Keeper Marethari had made it clear that this stop is temporary only; a restocking before pushing farther north. Danger comes from the south, she says, so to the north they move. A journey like that will require provisions for the clan. What better than smoked trout? Travels easy, tastes good, and easier to catch than any land animal. 

She spots one, fairly large, says a prayer and adjusts her hold on the bow. Just a little more to the left, and—

—and Tamlen crashes into the water. 

Lyna holds her position, perfectly still. She closes her eyes. “Was that absolutely necessary?” she says, opening one eye to glare at him. There is cress hanging off his ear. 

“You know it was,” he says. He flicks his fingers at her; water goes everywhere. “Cheer up, Lyna! The sun’s out!”

“The clan needs the fish,” she scowls. The bow is lowered; with the water this disturbed, the trout are gone. “You could be helping me, you know.”

“I could be,” Tamlen says. He heaves himself out of the pond, dripping, and there’s mischief in his face.

She stares at him, stonefaced.

“But I could also do this!” And he throws himself on her, laughing.

They fall back, a tangle of limbs, and she just barely gets her bow out of the way. By the time they stop, she’s  _ maybe _ smiling a little because she’s soaking wet now and he’s—Tamlen has always been a little infectious. “We really do need to do some hunting,” she says, tries to stay focused on their goal.

“Hunting won’t help if you’ve forgotten how to smile, firefly,” he tells her, taps her on the nose. “What would Mythal say?”

“She’d say this is Andruil’s domain and that we should go talk to her,” she answers. He’s always been like this, the light in the dark. “You heard what the Keeper said. We’re moving north as soon as we have the supplies.”

“And Andruil would say that we’ve not celebrated our hunt enough! The north will still be there if you take five minutes to galavant with me, you know,” Tamlen rubs his nose behind her ear where she’s ticklish, and snickers when she huffs out a laugh.

Lyna bites her lip and in one smooth move, flips them over, her knees planted against the ground beside his hips. “We can celebrate the hunt  _ after _ we catch something, beetle.”

“You’re already caught me, firefly, what else do you need?” and he waggles his eyebrows at her.

“Food,” she responds, quite seriously, but there’s a spark in her eye. “We all need food, or hummingbird is going to be buzzing in our ears about not listening to the Keeper. Again.”

“Bug means well,” he says, hands coming up to rest on the curve of her back. “She just—forgets. Now, lay down, we’ve got time yet.”

She looks back to the water, sees the ripples still moving across the surface from his dive. “You disturbed the fish on purpose, didn’t you?”

“You  _ wound _ me,” Tamlen gasps, “I would  _ never _ !”

“And my pride?” she sits up straight, hips soundly against his waist and there  _ is _ time. The fish are going to take forever to return in enough number to properly hunt. So she stares down at him, smirks, and says, “What of my pride, beetle? You robbed me of my kill.”

“Do you two  _ have _ to that  _ every _ time?”

“You’re welcome to join us sometime, hummingbird,” Lyna’s grinning now. “You don’t always have to interrupt.”

Merrill’s face goes up the colour of fire, all the way to the very tips of her ears. “Ly-Ly- _ Lyna _ !” she sputters. “ _ No _ !”

“Pity,” says Lyna. She presses a quick kiss to the corner of Tamlen’s mouth, moving just so that he can’t catch her for a better one. “I promise we wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Th-that’s what you say  _ now _ ,” Merrill says grumpily, rubbing at her cheeks. “Oooh, why must you be like this? And when there’re shems about, shame on you!”

_ That _ catches her attention. Lyna sits up straight, hand twitching towards her bow. “Shems? Are you sure?”

Shems in the forest. The Dread Wolf take every quick one, this place was supposed to be safe. The closest shemlen city is days away. The Keeper always takes care to keep them far from harm. “Which direction?” she asks, the smooth sylvanwood cold in her palm. The fish can wait. 

Merrill nods miserably, fiddling with the wind charms on her staff. “I’m sure. To the west, it smells like fear. Keeper Marethari won’t let me go, but—but you’ll come back to get me if there’s magic, won’t you?”

“Of course,” says Lyna, holding out a hand to help Tamlen stand. “Do you have your bow?”

He nods, one sharp jerk of his head. Tamlen’s gone tense in the shoulders, but his muscles have taken on that loose-limbed quality that he always gets when he’s preparing himself to kill someone—the shems won’t bother Merrill and the rest of the clan much longer; he and Lyna will see to it, as they always do.

She leads, always does. It’s an old pattern, one so practiced that it is as natural as tracking halla. She leads, he flanks, they kill quickly. To the west, Lyna can see traces of disturbances. Footsteps where no Dalish would step, the weight in the prints all wrong. Plants damaged in a way none of their people would do. 

And the sounds—the forest is too quiet, too still. 

She stops, holding out a hand. “Beetle, listen.”

Tamlen cocks his head to the side as he does as she bade. For long moments, he doesn’t move. Until he releases a breath, one long exhale into the air. His eyes are deadly sharp. “Something’s scared the animals.”

“Shem can’t do that alone,” and her mouth is a thin, grim line. “Keep an arrow ready.”

“As if I ever do anything  _ but _ ,” he scoffs, but he’s not playing. There’s something in the woods, something that shouldn’t be here. “Firefly, if it’s darkspawn—”

“We’ll kill them,” she says, “from a distance. And we retreat as soon as possible.”

She’s not—it’s not just the clan. Tamlen moves closer to her and she thinks he might be thinking the same thing. It’s not just about the clan. This is about them, as well. They’re the ones out here, facing whatever it is that has the forest scared—and that’s not an easy thing, scaring the Brecillian. This is an old,  _ old _ forest, with blood everywhere even if you can’t see it and ghosts in every shadow—if anything happens, it will be them first. 

And she can’t lose him. She just can’t. The clan will be a terrible loss, she thinks, but Tamlen is a part of her. He’s the beetle to her firefly. Without one, there is none, even if Keeper Marethari says the clan comes first, secretly it isn’t. 

“Then let’s hope I’m wrong, and not bring Bug into it. She doesn’t need to see us off a couple of shems, that’s just unnecessary,” Tamlen says as lightly as he can. He catches her hand and brings it up to kiss her palm, and then they go.

They follow the tracks all the way down the valley. The trail leads straight to a pair of shems thrashing through the forest, without any care to the plants beneath their feet. Idiots, they’re hurting the undergrowth, and it’s a wonder they’ve survived this long making this much noise.

“The Dalish are camped here,” Tamlen says, and nocks an arrow. He aims for the throat. “I suggest you leave, shemlen.”

“We didn’t know the Dalish were here, we promise!” one of them shouts, all too loud for how quiet the forest is. 

Lyna sighs and breathes through her nose. “Should we kill them?”

“Probably,” Tamlen says. “Two dead shems is better than none.”

To their credit, both humans look terrified. Lyna’s fairly certain one has wet himself, but the stain looks old, almost. “What are you doing out this far?”

“We found some ruins,” one of them answers. “Please don’t kill us! We just thought there’d be treasure inside the cave. We promise we didn’t know the Dalish were here!”

“What do you think, firefly?” Tamlen asks out of the corner of his mouth, soft enough that the shems won’t hear over the whine of his taut bowstring. “Death and victory, or not?”

She thinks of the hush in the forest, and the safety of her clan. “There are no caves in this area, shem. Nor any ruins.”

“They’re there, we promise! Just go that direction,” he says, pointing in one direction, the motion containing just a hint of desperation. “There are monsters there, but maybe you’ll find some treasure. You’re armed.”

He has a point and she looks sideways at Tamlen. “Let’s kill them.”

“Creators, I love you,” he says fervently, and then lets the arrow fly.

There is something about felling shemlen that gets the blood running. She spins around going down the hill, something like a giggle on her lips. Following, Tamlen is staring at her like she’s Mythal herself. “Shall we go exploring, beetle?”

“Murder makes you so amicable, firefly,” he says, fond. “Of course we should!”

He doesn’t say that if the shems weren’t lying, then the forest is up to something—and they need to see what it is, if only for the clan’s sake. If there  _ are _ ruins near here, then more shems will come. That’s the way of shems, to trample and destroy everything in their wake.

Sometimes, Tamlen thinks the shems have more in common with the darkspawn then they’d like to admit.

Lyna follows the shemlen’s  path easily enough. Honestly, their footsteps might as well be valleys they’re so deep. “Beetle, have you ever seen this part of the forest before?”

“No,” he says, frowning and dropping to one knee to touch the dirt. It crumbles away beneath his fingers. “This shouldn’t be here.”

“No, it shouldn’t be,” she can see the twisting trees up ahead. This is not good. There are ghosts here, echoes of things that should not be spoken of. “We should go tell Keeper Marethari. There’s magic here.”

And oh, how there is. If she takes even one step further, it crawls along her skin like ants. Wild magic is such a horrible thing. Dangerous and unpredictable; Creators, of course there’d be wild magic here. She can just barely make out the opening of a cave, dark and damp and very much alive in a way the surrounding area is not. 

They need to get out, and fast. Lyna’s heart is beginning to race, the hairs along the back of her neck raising slightly. She’s taking a step back, because no way is she turning her back on this place, when the scream slices through the air. 

Well,  _ damn _ . 

“Oh, come on, that’s not  _ fair _ ,” Tamlen complains aloud. “It’s like it  _ knows _ we have to go investigate that!”

And they  _ do _ have to investigate it. They’re honour-bound; as the only hunters in the vicinity, they must go and ensure that one of their own isn’t the one who screamed. The magic crawls along the ground, long reaching fingers of wind whistling down into the cave’s gaping maw. Tamlen squints at it like something offensive.

“Do we have to?” he says. “Can we not and say we did?”

That’s tempting. So, so tempting. But, “If it is one of ours, the Keeper will skin us alive. There will be no celebrating the hunt then, my dear beetle.”

“Bug’s going to kill us both if we come back dead, little firefly,” he says. Fen’Harel take it, they should have stayed away. One day he’s going to learn to listen to his instincts. “It’s magic, we should go get her, but—“

Tamlen and Lyna exchange a worried look. Merrill’s been strange, of late.

“—but if we’re fast, it’ll be alright,” he finds himself saying. Better to put himself in danger than Merrill, little Merrill who doesn’t know up from down even on the best of days, precious Merrill who still thinks the world is good. “Bug needn’t come for this, it’s not worth it.”

He’s right, of course. Merrill—precious little hummingbird doesn’t need to be near this. She’s so dazed, most time, moving so fast and flitting from one thought to the next that she’s so at risk. Oh Mythal, please let hummingbird come nowhere near here. Little darling will be taken by a demon someday.

“Let’s go,” Lyna says, and begins the slow descent towards the cave. 

It’s  _ cold _ , down below. Cold and  _ dark _ . Tamlen prays quietly to Andruil to let his aim fly true, but if she hears him, she remains silent. He takes a torch from the wall—torches, here, that’s suspicious enough on its own to merit further investigation—and lights it. The flint sparks twice beneath his hands, and then catches. He hands it to Lyna, and then lights another.

“Stay sharp,” Tamlen says, soft. He pulls a dagger out of his boot.

She sees him draw his dagger and draws her own. This space is cramped, small, collapsed in on itself in some places and choked in others by the forest growing through the walls. The air itself sparks with magic, it feels like. Creators keep them safe, there’s a sinking feeling in her stomach. There is something very wicked down here. There is something they should not be anywhere near, damn the scream, damn Marethari for instilling such honor in them.

She looks back at Tamlen and says a quick prayer. “I love you, beetle.”

“I love you, too, firefly,” he says, and means every word. They’ve been Bonded in every way but before the Keeper since they were children—they’ve been Bonded before they even really knew what being Bonded meant, in truth—but it seems right to reaffirm it, down here in the dark.

There is an eldritch chittering sound, something laughing through its teeth, and then the monsters come.

Spiders first, then dead— _ things _ , he’s no other name for them. He and Lyna have fought qunari raiders and shemlen mercenaries and  _ bears _ , literal  _ bears _ , but none of them come close to touching the sheer gagging  _ terror _ that clogs through Tamlen’s throat now. The dead things fall easily, but putting a creature down twice is something he’d never thought he’d have to do.

They don’t—don’t  _ bleed _ . There’s nothing inside of them but rot.

“A little farther,” he says, the words sticking in his throat. “And then we go back to camp.”

“Agreed,” she says, the words  _ I love you _ on her lips still because something does not feel right about this place. Fear curls up her spine, keeping her feeling like she’s standing on a knife’s edge—one wrong step and it’s a long way down. 

Later, she will regret not saying it again. Will regret not kissing him. Will regret not leaving when they had a chance. Will regret not taking him as hers on the banks of the stream. 

Later, she will look back on this and remember: 

There is a bear-like thing, angry and distorted. It dies difficulty. Behind it is a mirror, grand and undoubtedly the source of everything wrong. Its surface twists and writhes if looked at from the corner of your eye, but is like any other mirror if looked at straight on. She will remember the statues of Elgar’nan alongside it, and think what horrific irony this is. 

But more importantly, she will remember Tamlen, her beetle, her beloved, her  _ only,  _ reaching out to touch the mirror. He didn’t look back.

(In her dreams he always does, then she wakes and remembers that he did not, and the bitterness on her tongue will be more than she can stand. In her dreams, she reaches out to grab his shoulder, and for a minute he is so real  beneath her. In her dreams, she stops him, takes him back to camp and they go north with the clan—)

She should have stopped him.

She didn’t.

And that is how the world ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: so we totally didn't forget to post new chapters!
> 
> (we totally did. we just started writing chapter nineteen and are nearly at 300K words into this thing right now)
> 
> note the second: YO HOLLA


	7. numb from the neck down

“Thank you for bringing her here, Warden,” says Marethari, mouth set in a line of malcontent. None of his news is good. One hunter gravely ill, the other missing, dangerous magic near their camp, and now—now he says Lyna must join his order or die. “But are you certain there is no other way?”

Duncan shakes his head. It is a sad thing, to have to recruit someone out of this kind of necessity. Saving Kallian is one thing. Saving this hunter, though, has two paths should the Keeper not agree. 

She will die. 

Or she will kill them all.

He prefers she join the Wardens, stall the taint and add one more to their number. He has heard enough about this one from conversations overheard. She is a skilled hunter; one of their best. She is young and hale, smart and gracious. A good recruit, all things considered. It would be such a shame to have to kill her to ensure the taint does not corrupt her. 

“I am sorry, Keeper. Though I came here seeking new Wardens, I do so wish it had not been like this,” he says, sincere to the last. “I cannot promise you her safety, but this is the only chance she has.”

This, Marethari knows, is true. She may not know the truth of the taint, nor what it bodes for one untreated, but she can sense the darkness coursing through little Mahariel’s veins.

And without Tamlen—

_ Creators, bless them, bless this child and keep her safe _ , Marethari thinks fervently. “I do not know if she will even wish to live, Warden,” she says, quiet, eyes trained on the pale body draped with furs not far from them. “The hunter who is still missing is very precious to her, and I suspect it is a situation in which one means none.”

So much pain. She should have listened, should have taken the clan closer to Zathrian’s, but dark magic follows that clan with every footstep, creeping ever closer with each passing year. It seems they were never meant to escape Ferelden unscathed. 

Duncan knows this aching in her expression, has felt it many times before. There is nothing he can say to make this better, he knows. No one will ever make this better. He sighs deeply, an age much older than his own echoing in the sound. “Take your clan north, Keeper. Fate willing, we will stop this Blight at Ostagar and you will be able to return soon.”

“And you would have me leave Lyna?” she asks. “Should I tell my people that we will not even attempt to find Tamlen?”

_ Your hunter is dead _ , he wishes to say,  _ or will be very soon. _ This is the  _ taint _ . Why can she not understand that? Do the Dalish truly have such little experience with darkspawn corruption to know what becomes of it? 

He should introduce them to the dwarves, perhaps. Orzammar would not be so forgiving of such ignorance. 

“The Wardens are her only chance of surviving.”

“And Tamlen?”

Duncan’s frown deepens. “If he yet lives, we shall do our best to find him. That is the best I can offer you in times such as these.”

It is not the best, but it shall have to do. Marethari takes one last look at Lyna and nods, solemn to the last. “I just ask that you let it be her choice.”

“Of course,” he says. “I can give her that.”

Kally fidgets in the background.

She doesn’t know what she was expecting.

It certainly wasn’t this. It certainly wasn’t—any of this, actually. The Dalish stare without saying anything, their faces solemn and their hands always hovering close to their bows. And they don’t  _ speak _ , it’s the strangest thing, none of them have said a word. She could feel their gazes on the back of her neck, boring holes into her skull like they could see into her brain if they looked hard enough.

So yes, maybe she  _ is _ hiding. Who is anyone to comment?

And besides, the Dalish girl lying on the cot beside her is going to be coming with them. Kally’s sure of it, though she doesn’t know how she’s so sure of it. It’s a settling in her bones, maybe.

But still, she fidgets.

(Maker, she wants to get  _ out _ of here.)

Lyna comes to slowly,  _ painfully _ . It feels like she’s had Fen’Harel’s teeth everywhere, digging in so deep even her bones ache. She has everything, all her bits, right? Arms, legs, head, fingers, toes; it all seems to be there, so what is it that’s gone? 

Her bow—where is her bow?

She blinks, darkness still fading, to find no bow and an—intruder?

Intruder, yes, it clicks, instinct rolling in like the tide. Elven, female, small, no vallaslin but not a child. 

Where is her bow? She needs her bow, needs it so badly, there’s a swell of panic rising in her chest because where is her bow and  _ why did Tamlen let this thing in _ ?

…  _ oh _ .

“Oh, hi,” Kally says, blinking away the melancholy. It’s no help to anyone, right now, and she knows better than to dwell on things she can’t change. “You’re awake!”

It’s loud. What is this thing? Why is it here. Lyna opens her mouth to say something, hand searching for her bow; where is her bow? What, why—it should be here? “Bow?” she manages, not finding the sylvanwood anywhere.

“Here,” Kally scrambles for it, tucked as it is beneath the other girl’s cot. “Here, it’s here.”

Lyna’s hands find the weapon quickly, turning it to aim at the thing’s head—no arrows. Andruil, why did she not ask for an  _ arrow _ ? 

Never mind that, a bow will work. Lyna pushes forward, sending the strange elf to the floor, bow pressed against its throat. “Where is Tamlen?”

Old instinct kicks in, and Kally bends back her wrist to flick the dagger in her sleeve out. She holds it cooly against the girl’s stomach. “Get off me, stupid, or I gut you.”

“A flat-ear, killing me?” Lyna jumps up, kicking the thing’s hand to step on it, firm and determined, the tip of the bow dangerous against the softest portion of the neck. “No.”

“Rude,” Kally tells her, snaps her head backwards, knocks her knees up to kick the girl’s legs out from under her. She gets the wall at her back, her daggers up and curved around her forearms; defense and not offense. Kally’s not in the mood to kill anyone, today. “Andraste’s ass, don’t you have any social graces? I’m trying to help, and you call me a name? So rude!”

Duncan  _ sighs _ . Of course the hunter would wake up before they returned.  _ Of course _ . Beside him, he would wager the Keeper looks almost amused at this turn of events. 

And oh, how Marethari is. That’s her girl, strong and brave. Be it the Beyond or the Wardens, Lyna will do much. She forces down the smile and enters the aravel. “I see you have awakened, da’len. Please calm yourself.”

The Keeper—the tension in Lyna’s shoulders fades, just a little. “Where is Tamlen?”

Kally suddenly, desperately wants her father, so much that she thinks she might start crying. She doesn’t even know why. Already the urge is receding, but she can’t deny it was there. Tears never help anything.

She relaxes, breathes in and out.

The daggers stay unsheathed, though.

Marethari crosses the aravel in two steps, pushes Lyna back down to the furs. “You should rest, da’len. It has been a long journey for you.”

“But Tamlen—”

“Hush,” Marethari orders. “Tell us what you remember.”

Lyna blinks. What  _ does  _ she remember? Creators, it hurts. Everything still hurts, especially her head are there sylvans jumping around on top of it? “A mirror, Keeper. There was a mirror. Tamlen touched it.”

“A mirror caused all this?” the Keeper asks, looking back at the Warden, but Duncan shakes his head as if to say  _ I have no knowledge of this _ . “Do you remember nothing else?”

Lyna shakes her head and Marethari bites back all the questions burning on her tongue. This is no magic she has ever heard of. So, so many questions about what was found out there, the creatures, the magic—Lyna is a Keeper’s child, after all, magic should be easy for her to spot—she needs to know what is out there before she can… 

Oh, Mythal give them strength. 

Marethari takes a deep breath and says, softly. “Child, these two saved you and brought you back to us.”

“So thanks for attacking me,” Kally says, smiling with her teeth. “Just tryna help.”

Duncan frowns, lines set deep in his face. “Kallian, not now,’ he says, turns back to the hunter. She is such a small little thing, and yet not. The Joining—

“Whatever, old man,” Kally says, throat tight, in the most dismissive voice she can manage. She tosses her hair because it makes her look like she doesn’t care. “I’m out, come find me when we all decide to behave like adults.”

And then she leaves the aravel without another word.

“Forgive her,” Duncan says. “She is young, and still new to the outside world. Your Keeper gives us more credit than we deserve. We found you outside the cave. We simply carried you back to your camp.”

Outside? Lyna—no, it couldn’t be, it  _ has _ to be. “Tamlen?”

It had to be Tamlen. No one else was there, it  _ had _ to be Beetle. He’s still alive, he’s still alive, and she will find him, will bring him home and it will all be—

“You were alone,” Duncan says, sees the hope dashed. This one will be difficult, perhaps, in a different way than Kallian, but still worth the attempt, mayhaps. “And you are not out of the woods just yet. There is a corruption in your blood. The Keeper’s magic is keeping it at bay, but it will eventually be too strong to contain.”

Marethari closes her eyes for a long moment, her spindly hands finding Lyna’s strong ones and holding tightly. “The Wardens know how to keep this from killing you, da’len, but you will have to leave the clan.”

“I will leave you to discuss it,” Duncan says, politely but still quickly because this is not a conversation for outsiders, he thinks. And Kallian still needs to be found. 

_ Maker _ , he thinks,  _ this is always so difficult _ . 

 

—

 

Cailan’s drawing circles on Elissa’s bare shoulders, listening to nothing but the sound of quiet breathing.

“Let’s go somewhere,” he says.

Elissa breathes deeply. This is a special kind of lazy, she thinks. What Mother used to call overfed cat and it has been so long since she last felt like this. When was it, truly? Highever was always so busy, so much to do, so many people to see. There was never really time to just  _ be _ . “Go where?” she asks, because really, she’s quite comfortable where she is.

“Not right now,” he snickers. “I’m good where I am, right now. But there’s… on the coast, the summer palace. I’d like to go, if you’d come.”

“On the coast?”  _ That _ catches her attention, memories of the Waking Sea and salt in the air, on her tongue crashing into her heart. The wilderness of the sea is like nothing else and she needs it again; needs it the same way a plant needs sunshine. “And it’s away from Denerim?”

“A couple of days easy ride,” Cailan says. She’s turned into him. The summer palace and its long winding hallways leave his thoughts entirely. 

“Cailan,” she starts, fingers finding the ends of his hair. He’d make a terrible sailor, she thinks. “Why are you only just mentioning this?”

“I was going to tell you earlier,” he mumbles, and there’s almost something  _ grumpy _ in his voice. “You’re rather—distracting, I hope you know.”

She drops the strands of hair in her fingers, puts her arms behind her head. “I am a distraction?”

“A very nice one,” he tells her, and levers himself up on an elbow to look down at her. Her hair’s a snarled mess of curls across the pillow, like ink across a blank piece of parchment, and he gets caught up in staring at them.

A very nice distraction, indeed.

He’s doing it again. This is slowly becoming normal, seeing him look at her like she’s the only real thing left in the world. She’s not even sure he knows he does it, and does not feel inclined to mention it. For all that he’s a quick learner, there’s still this odd, almost tangible, sense of innocent wonder to him. 

And Elissa, well, she’d rather not destroy that. 

“You’re not too bad yourself,” says Elissa, lips turning up in a small smile. No, he’s not such a bad distraction at all but he has promised her the sea and she must know. “Tell me about the summer palace?”

“It was my favourite place, growing up,” he says. “It’s… small.”

He doesn’t know how to describe the summer palace, really. It  _ is _ very small, much more like a very large house than a palace. It hangs off a cliff, white-washed and red-roofed, with a hundred steps cut into the rock down to the sea. There’s nothing around for miles, as well, no towns, no cities, no  _ people _ at all. In some ways it is lonely; Cailan knows his mother spent her time there, when she could. But in the same ways it is lonely, it is beautiful. The Amaranthine Ocean, empty forever until far in the distance where it meets the sky in a hazy blue line; he always felt like there was nowhere so safe as that endless blue cocoon.

“There isn’t anyone around,” Cailan starts with that, because he thinks she might like that the most. “It’s wild land, feels like the rest of the world’s forgotten it. And there’s a beach, with sand, but you wouldn’t know it unless you look down from the balcony on the east side. The sun comes in the morning, and the whole ocean, it looks like it’s nothing but a carpet of glitterdust on fire. Most amazing sunrises I’ve ever seen, and—”

He stops to look down at her, grinning guiltily. “I’m telling it all wrong, aren’t I.”

Elissa can’t breathe, not quite. He forgot to mention  _ this _ ? Andraste in a sea squall, for all he now knows about her body he knows absolutely  _ nothing _ about her does he? “If that’s telling it wrong, I’d like to know what telling it right is. This place sounds perfect. How could anyone not love it?”

“My father didn’t like it, much,” he says, trying not to be awkward about it. No, his father hadn’t liked it at all: built during the Orlesian occupation, entirely ostentatious, paid for with Fereldan blood and Orlesian gold, it was everything his father and Loghain had hated most about the occupation. Cailan would never have known it existed, had his mother not taken him there.

Maker, he’s glad she did.

“Did your father just hate everything beautiful about life?” Lissy asks, regrets it as soon as she does because she can feel Fergus’s disappointment even though her brother will likely never know about this conversation. 

(And probably will never want to know about it. Fergus has the same desire to know about life beyond her bedroom door as she does about his life. Such is the way of siblings.)

Cailan snorts. “That’s a good way to put it, actually—” he blinks at her, “—and you’ve gone red. Why are you red?”

“My family—” she can feel the blush intensifying, “—I was not raised to speak like that. Everyone used to get on to me, most times. I suppose I haven’t quite outgrown the disapproval.”

She’s explaining this all wrong, probably. Cailan grew up in the royal family; he wouldn’t have had to deal with the expectancy of certain decorums regarding himself or his parents. There is likely no Nan telling him to behave and treat the Theirins with respect lurking in his memory. There is no Mother and Father, constantly exasperated but perhaps, maybe, secretly proud of their child’s defiant streak because Couslands are proud and independent but still very, very loyal to the Theirin line. There is no older brother, always proud of the insistence that Highever was better off free but always cautioning him against speaking in such a way that might damage the family’s standing in Ferelden.

“It doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Cailan says. He’s trying to crack the crick in his neck without looking away from her, because she needs to understand this. “My father was a good king, but he wasn’t a very good father. They say he loved my mother, but I never saw it.”

_ Well _ , he thinks, a tad bitterly,  _ this is hitting a little too close to home _ .

Melancholy does not suit him. Not one bit, she’s finding. It drags the corner of his mouth down, darkens the eyes, puts a shadowed expression on his face that ages him far too much. She reaches up, fingers tracing the line from temple to jaw. “You would have liked Highever, I think.”

Yes, he would have done quite well in Highever. Strange that he never came, actually. Maric, as far as she knew, only visited once, despite being on good terms with her parents. It was Fergus’s twentieth birthday, just before the late king vanished. Maybe there were visits earlier, but not once did Cailan join him. 

_ How very strange _ , she thinks, brow furrowing, fingers still tracing his features,  _ that the crown prince would never visit such an important city _ . 

“I think so, too,” he says, brushes his fingers along the sharp jut of her hip. He doesn’t say that he  _ had _ asked about it, many times. Anora had gone, his mother had gone, everyone had gone to Highever but Cailan had been forced to stay in Denerim. He still doesn’t know why; it had been one of his father’s never-ending eccentricities.

“It’s a city,” she says, tries hard to keep her voice steady when he begins drawing circles on her hip, “and it’s nothing like Denerim. Our streets are wider and actually look different as you move from one to the other. There’s salt in the air so strong you can taste it, even far from the docks because Highever is built alongside a harbour, the Waking Sea coming right up to the cliffs below the castle. You can see the vhenadahl from most everywhere, but especially from the Chantry. It’s the second tallest building in the city, after the castle, and you can see for miles from the front door. We have merchants from all over. There’s very little you can’t find in the marketplace, and you can always see the sails of passing ships. And so many places to hide; to just get away and enjoy the sound of waves crashing on the cliffs.”

“You love it,” he says, quietly, torn between wanting her to go on and just being amazed that she said so many words at once. 

“So much,” she agrees. If she closes her eyes, she can see it so vividly it’s like she’s still there, like Howe didn’t reveal himself to be a viper, like the past month has just been a bad dream. “Have you ever been to Kirkwall?”

“Twice,” he lights up. “It’s amazing, isn’t it.”

Oh  _ Maker _ , he’s…  _ cute _ when he talks about something he likes. “Of course it is,” she manages, staring at his collarbone. “Highever and Kirkwall are sisters. We’re so close together that  they’ve always been our primary source of trade. The two are quite alike in appearance because of it.”

“We can go someday, diplomatic visits are never scarce,” Cailan says. His mouth twists, after a moment. “But Maker, I hated sailing through the Twins.”

“They have their use,” her nose wrinkles at the thought of them, “but they could have been something more pleasant to look at for sure.” Then his offer sinks in, and she looks up to find sincerity in his eyes. “I would like that very much, I think. And you shall see Highever when Fergus becomes Teyrn. She’s survived worse than Howe. I doubt he can do much damage to the city.”

“Not without Qunari explosives,” he says, mouth quirking up.

Lissy giggles. Andraste in a sea squall she’s  _ giggling _ , Maker help her. “It’s been tried. Our navy learned very quickly to sink any dreadnought that comes within a certain range.”

“Was that a giggle?” Cailan asks, pokes her in the side. “Did you just  _ giggle _ ?”

“Sorry,” she says, takes a deep breath to calm herself, “just thinking of the only time gaatlok was ever successfully detonated in Highever. The dreadnought somehow got soldiers in past the navy, but they only destroyed an abandoned section of the docks that a group of slavers we’d been trying to eradicate for months had set up shop.”

“Slavers,” he says, a bite in his voice. “Much as I dislike the templars, if Tevinter burned I wouldn’t mourn.”

“They’re a constant problem along the Waking Sea.” She shrugs, thinking of all the guards’ reports she’s seen over the years. “It’s worse when they start working with the raiders, but at least conflict with the Qunari means the two are usually too preoccupied with each other to be of too much trouble for us. And, of course, the fact that between us, Highever and Kirkwall can effectively cut off all access between the eastern and western sides of the Waking Sea, we can put a stop all sea-travel completely if need be. It likely won’t be done, but the threat certainly helps.”

“So you want to go, then?” he asks, walks his fingers up her spine. The cup of her ribs is so small beneath his hand. “To the summer palace?”

“I think I would like that very much,” she answers.

Cailan grins, and dips his head to mouth along her collarbones. She has very nice collarbones. In fact, she has very nice everything, and now that the summer palace is settled—Maker, if it weren’t for the Blight he’d like to stay out there until the snow comes, and that’s months away—he thinks he’s quite content to spend the rest of the day right here.

Which is, of course, when someone knocks.

Cailan drops his head into the crook of Elissa’s neck. “Can we ignore it,” he says, and it’s not a question.

“Your Majesties!” comes muffled through the door. “It’s Ammy! Please listen!”

Elissa sighs, heavy. “No, we can’t,” she says, then calls out. “What is it, Amethyne?”

“Mama and Ser Gilmore are coming up the stairs,” says the little girl, voice panicky-high. “You’ve got—ten minutes, I think? If you don’t put some clothes on, they’ll make fun, and they’ll never stop!”

“Thank you!” Elissa frowns. This was just starting to get good, and he’s starting to press little kisses along her neck and it is very, very distracting. “Cailan, stop doing that.”

“Must I?”

“Unless you want Iona to look even more smug when she talks to you, then yes.”

“I hate it when she does that, it’s frightening,” Cailan grumbles, but leaves off showering her throat with attention. “That woman is a terror.”

“But she’s the kind of terror you want on your side.” Elissa slowly removes herself from him, sadly, almost. His clothes are scattered about; she gathers them up quickly, tossing each piece back to him. The shirt lands on his head, sliding off to crumple on the sheets beside him. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Probably,” Cailan says, “but I’d much rather be here.”

And Chamberlain hasn’t come in croaking his rage at the sky, so it’s not like the castle is about to come down round their ears just yet. Cailan’s not too worried; the nobles expect lackadaisical behaviour out of him, don’t they, he can’t disappoint them. And now he’s actually got a  _ reason _ to be lackadaisical! Anora would be so proud.

He’s really rather attractive like this, deep in thought with his hair loose around his shoulders and on her bed, but well, Amethyne said Iona and Gil are on their way and it’s really rather bad enough that they’re going to know, because they will. At this point there is no way to get him out here without them seeing him.

And, well, that leads to conversations she’s not quite sure she’s ready to have. 

Iona will tease, for sure, but Gil—Gil is something she’s going to have to deal with, very soon, but just… not now, okay? Just not now. 

“Go be king, Cailan,” she says, soft, leaning over to press a light kiss to the tip of his nose.

“Yeah, alright,” he smiles at her, and stands up to pull on his shirt.

 

—

 

The Dalish are camped a little ways from a pond, and Kally’s already halfway there without thinking about it. She can’t be around people, right now, around  _ anyone at all _ , because she’ll say something  _ awful _ that she’ll end up regretting. That’s the way it always goes.

Kally forgets, you see, that she can wound with words as easily as with daggers.

The Brecillian Forest is verdant around her, and the bank of the pond is soft with moss and sand. She sits down right there, and without further ado, wraps her arms around her knees and glares out across the water. It’s very quiet, and that’s good.

Maker, she wants Ahni and Soris.

Kally hides her face, and tries to remember how to breathe.

Duncan can see her, close to the water. She looks so small amid the tall trees and proud Dalish. He will have to be careful with them both, it seems. Lyna for her grief and Kallian for her age. This is why he had wanted the other Tabris. The recruits with the most trouble adjusting are always the youngest, and given that Kallian’s experience with the outside world is limited—

This will be interesting, once the recruiting from the Circle and Orzammar is completed. 

The aravel behind him is still sealed up; the hunter and the Keeper will be talking for a long while yet, more than likely. Which leaves little Kallian, small fragile thing that she is. 

He sits down beside the water, a ways off from her, and waits.

_ Everyone is always so noisy _ , Kally thinks. Even Duncan, and he’s the quietest human she’s ever met. He’s going to want her to talk, but she’s got… nothing to say, really, except the mean things, and she doesn’t want to go there today. Instead, she tucks her face more securely into her arms, and counts down backwards from ten.  _ Nine, eight, seven _ …

She gets to  _ four _ , and then the urge to—no, there’s not really a word for what this urge is. It’s yearning to prove she’s alright, that she doesn’t need anyone or anything. That there are jobs to do, lives to ruin, darkspawn to kill. That she’s got a million other places to be, and all of them are more important than here—becomes impossible to ignore.

“I’m fine,” she says out loud. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I am well aware,” he responds, attention never leaving the pond. A leaf falls from a tree, ripples casting out from where it meets the water. “You are a very capable young woman.”

“Yeah, well,” Kally says, shrugging a little.  _ Whatever _ , she wants to say,  _ whatever, whatever, whatever! _

“I mean it, Kallian,” he still focuses on the water, watching the push and pull on the shoreline. “Life as a Warden is not easy. Your fellow Wardens are your family, regardless of whether or not you are still in contact with the family of your birth. This requires being able to connect with people from all backgrounds and of all temperaments. The world is much bigger than Denerim, and the culture is quite different once you pass through the city gates.”

“Tried that,” Kally says, and oh, there it is, there’s the meanness, Maker, she  _ knew _ this was going to happen, “and that fellow Warden tried to hit me in the face with a bow. So I’m good, old man, thanks, but no thanks.”

“That hunter back there has just woken up, unsure of how she got to be where she is and with a stranger in the room with her. Her weapon was nowhere to be found, and her companion is still missing,” Duncan speaks bluntly, finally looking at her. “What would you have done in her place?”

“Not that,” she says.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “Did the same thing not occur when you woke up at the Arl of Denerim’s estate? What did you do in that situation?”

“I didn’t attack the person leaning over me who was  _ trying to help _ ,” and okay, she might have gone and stabbed some  _ other _ guy, but not right after she’d woken up!

“Was that not someone you knew? What if it had been a stranger you had never met before?”

“Still wouldn’t have,” Kally says, shoving her face back in her crossed arms. “Normal people don’t wake up and attack a person!”

Duncan breathes deeply, slowly, thinks of the dwarven berserkers. Kallian would be brilliant at it, he thinks, if only her fighting style were amenable to such techniques. “She is not a normal person, though, at least not what you would consider. She is a Dalish hunter. Her weapon is a part of her, and outsiders are to be regarded with suspicion, if not killed on sight.”

“That doesn’t make it okay,” she mutters, trying valiantly not to see the sense in his words. It’s annoying. Everything is annoying. She wants to go  _ home _ .

But she doesn’t have a home, anymore, not really. The old man’s right, in a way: the Wardens  _ are _ her family, now, though she hasn’t taken the vows or—or whatever it is that Wardens do to become Wardens. Ada and Uncle Valendrian are still in Denerim, and Soris is away at the palace, and Ahni… Ahni is somewhere else, entirely.

Maker’s breath, she’s  _ homesick _ .

“Grief rarely makes for sensible behavior,” he says, “and that is perfectly alright. Such things are what let us know that we are still alive, regardless of what happens around us.”

“She still tried to hit me in the face with her bow,” Kally says, but the fury’s drained away, now, and all she’s left with is an aching hole in her chest. She doesn’t need to tell him that she’s scared, here, that all she wants is someone in her corner, that she’s young and dumb and going it alone; he knows that.

And yes, grief  _ does _ skew a person’s reactions. She knows that better than anyone.

_ Still _ .

“All I ask is that you try to find common ground with her.” The corners of his mouth quirk up in the ghost of a maybe-smile. “Even if it is nothing more than killing darkspawn.”

There’s a crack behind them, and Lyna grimaces at how loud it seems. Both the little elf and the Warden turn to face her and a very large part of her just wants to turn and run back, to tear apart the forest searching for Tamlen because this cannot be their fate. 

Creators, this should not be this difficult, but Marethari’s words still ring in her ears and there’s a sinking feeling somewhere in her spine that  _ this is the end _ . 

So she stands up straight and simply asks, “When do we leave?”

 

—

 

Iona is giggling.

Iona is giggling, and she is mortified that she is giggling, but dear Andraste, the look on Ser Gilmore’s  _ face _ . King Cailan had left Lady Elissa’s room with the ruffled look of a man who’d much rather still be in bed with his lady fair, but also of a small boy caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

And Ser Gilmore’s face is  _ twitching _ .

And, Andraste help her, it is  _ very funny _ .

“Ser Gilmore,” she says, trying to be gentle but failing, probably, because the poor man’s temple is throbbing, and she can’t help how amusing she finds it, “perhaps I should speak to Lady Elissa first?”

There’s a tension growing behind his eyes. It isn’t that this is happening—no, he knew that. It’s just that… well, he’s still not entirely sure about this, but if Lissy is happy then that’s good right?

Yes, it is.

Lissy happy and safe is all that matters. 

“I think that would be best,” he says, pained, because yes, as much as he wants to speak to her, to make sure she’s okay and nothing is wrong, he also knows Lissy better than he knows himself, or used to, at least. 

And right now, he knows, he is probably the  _ last _ person Lissy wants to see.

Iona sombers, a little. She asks, very quietly, “Are you alright?”

“I will be,” he answers, looking down at the stones of the floor. Iona is easy to talk to. Her presence is calming, tranquil. But this? This is something he’s not sure how to explain. What defines ‘alright’?

This was always going to happen. He knew that. He just has to keep reminding himself. 

It’s just that, well, he never thought it would be quite like this. Once upon a time, not so long ago, he knew everything about what was going on in her life. This distance was always coming, the inevitable end they preferred to ignore. 

He just didn’t think it would happen so quickly. 

Or so quietly. 

“You go talk to Lissy,” he says. “There’s something I need to do.”

Iona almost wants to tease, but there’s something so miserable behind his eyes that she doesn’t think she can. He’d not been prepared, of course he wasn’t, and for all that Iona thinks that King Cailan and Lady Elissa will be good for each other, she doesn’t think Ser Gilmore really knew what this marriage entailed. There is a difference between knowing and  _ knowing _ , between the knowledge that one day Lady Elissa’s room will no longer just be Lady Elissa’s room and actually seeing King Cailan walk out the door, too mussed for propriety by far.

And so Iona ducks her head in acknowledgement, touches his wrist very softly, and goes to knock on Lady Elissa’s door.

“Who is it?” Elissa asks, checking her appearance in the mirror. A stray curl sticks straight up from her temple. She’s fairly certain she needs a bath. Andraste in a sea squall, she’s fairly certain this shouldn’t be as embarrassing as it is. “Iona?”

“Yes, my lady,” Iona says through the door. “May I come in?”

The bed is a mess, she’s a mess, and Maker if Iona is here this soon after Cailan left, she’s fairly certain the two likely ran into each other.

Which means  _ Gil _ and Cailan saw each other.

There’s not really any way for this to be worse, is there? “The door is unlocked. Go ahead and come in.”

Iona pushes the door open, and there’s her lady, slumped at her vanity like the whole world is out to get her. It’s funny, funnier even than Ser Gilmore, somehow, because Lady Elissa can be so  _ dramatic _ , especially when she doesn’t mean to be.

And Iona does so love to tease. “Did you have a good day, my lady?”

“Wonderful, up until being interrupted,” Elissa says. Two can play this game. “And it was about to get much nicer.”

“I’m sure it was,” Iona says, lightly. “I hope my daughter didn’t bother you and His Majesty, I’ll remind her it’s not kind to barge in uninvited.”

Elissa grins, wide and toothy like a fox. “She’s really quite delightful. Knocked on the door politely and warned us you were coming. Had she not done that, you would have interrupted something far more compromising.”

“Then I suppose I  _ have _ taught her well,” Iona says, chuckling softly.

“You love this, don’t you?” It’s a bit more accusatory than she means it, but Elissa can  _ feel _ the amusement rolling off the elf even from here. 

“Oh, my lady!” Iona pretends to gasp. It takes everything she has not to burst into horrible cackling. “Why on  _ earth _ would you think  _ that _ ?”

Elissa does her best to mimic Mother’s  _ are you kidding me _ face. “Is there something you wish to know?”

And now, now Iona  _ can’t _ help herself, because Lady Elissa walked  _ right into that _ . She lets the innocent smile that’s been hiding in the corners of her lips since she opened the door cross her face, and she blinks innocuously enough. “Only to let you know that your breastband is still on the floor, my lady. And also, King Cailan doesn’t know how to do his own hair.”

“I was thinking of taking a bath,” Elissa answer diplomatically. Sneaky little—one of these days, something will happen and she will get her revenge. “The breastband was bothering me. As for the king’s hair, do I even want to know how you came across that information?”

“I passed him coming out of your rooms, my lady,” Iona says, fluttering her eyelashes. “His breeches were on backwards, as well. I think he might be ill.”

“He seemed well enough to me,” Elissa says before she can stop herself. Oh no. Oh  _ no _ . Iona is going to—someday, someday Iona will do something that levels the playing field.

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Iona says, oh Andraste, she’s not going to last, she’s not going to be able to stop the laughter. “How  _ did _ he seem, my lady?”

“Very focused,” Elissa smiles, thinks quickly of the fastest way to make Iona blush because she  _ will _ do it. “And really rather  _ energetic _ , I suppose?”

“The way he eats, I’m not surprised,” she tells her. “Although, I don’t know—did either of you eat anything today?” Iona pauses for effect because she is terrible, and she will not pretend anything else. “Oh, wait, of  _ course _ he did.”

Did she just—

Andraste she  _ did _ . 

Elissa can feel the heat rising up her neck, across her cheeks, and the bite mark on her hip aches in reminder. “You’re a terror, you know that right?”

“My lady, you don’t know the half of it,” Iona giggles. Lady Elissa’s gone bright red, and that’s adorable, that is, there’s no other word for it. Iona nudges her with an elbow in passing, because she doesn’t mean any of it as an insult, and the touch will lessen the sting. “You wanted a bath, I think?”

“Please,” she says, “I’d like to retain some dignity and I’m finding it rather difficult when I smell like the king.”

Iona chokes, because  _ Maker _ . “Lady Elissa,” she says, very seriously, lips twitching, “you can’t say things like that to me right now, I won’t be able to treat it with the respect it deserves.”

Elissa looks at her, sees the twitching smile trying to break the surface and waits. “You can laugh, you know.”

“No, my lady, it wouldn’t be right to laugh at the queen, even if she does look a bit  _ rumpled _ .”

Elissa  _ glares _ .

And Iona bursts into laughter. Real laughter, the belly-aching kind, and she’s laughing and laughing and laughing, because of all things, Lady Elissa even  _ glares _ like the world is an affront to her sensibilities. She laughs so hard she has to wipe away tears.

“I’m sorry,” Iona says, kindly as she can around a mouthful of mirth. She means it when she says, “I’m not treating this with the gravity it deserves. I apologize, my lady.”

“Think nothing of it,” Elissa says, fondly. “Just promise you won’t laugh when you see the marks he left.”

“Marks? You’d think he’d be gentle,” Iona says. The tub is already full, and steaming. Chamberlain is a frightening creature. There’s even a bottle of lavender oil, and Iona pours enough of it into the tub that it soaks the air, twining through rosewater and soap alike.

Elissa follows Iona towards the bath, the smell of rosewater present long before she crosses the threshold. Someday, she will figure out how Chamberlain does it. Lavender joins it, calming and so very pleasant. “You should see what I did to him, then,” she mutters.

“That is not surprising, my lady,” Iona says absently.

Fabric hits the floor with barely a whisper, and Lissy reaches up to try to detangle her hair. Andraste in a sea squall, she should never have tried that once the pearls were out, she should have  _ known _ inviting him into her room would end in even more tangles. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing about your pent-up aggression, my lady, I assure you,” Iona says. Andraste, she needs to learn to curb her tongue, she’d thought she’d had a handle on it, but apparently not. Lady Elissa has bruises? There’s the sass, Iona waves as it goes past.

Some of the bruises, though, look a little older than a few hours, mottled yellow-green and oddly straight-edged. “Did you have a fight with a door, Lady Elissa?”

Elissa pauses, the water of the bath lapping at one leg. “If you ever remarry, try to avoid having your wedding night in a library,” she says, stepping fully into the water. “There are no comfortable places for such activities.”

“I’ll see if I can’t find some salve,” Iona murmurs, still smiling. “Your hair is going to be an hours’ work on its own. I’ll be back, so please try not to find His Majesty while I’m gone, it will make my life far more difficult than it needs to be, yes?”

“I rather think that would be quite enjoyable, considering where I am,” she says, but sees Iona’s face and reconsiders. “But I’ll just stay here and try to get started on working the tangles out of the hair.”

“I’m sure it would be, my lady, but then there’d be water everywhere, and it would take forever to clean up,” Iona says, voice dry. “You’ll need a bigger tub.”

“Yes, I suppose we would,” Elissa muses, then smiles wickedly. “I wonder what Chamberlain would say to that.”

“Probably that you’ve got him running around enough as it, and you can find your own tub if the one you have isn’t good enough,” Iona smirks.

Elissa raises one leg out of the water, foot pointed to form a straight line. “You’re likely right. I’ll just have to wait until I can get him to the sea, then. There’s water everywhere, there. No mess involved.” Her nose wrinkles at the memory of the  _ last _ time she’d tried this at the sea. “Except sand. Andraste in a sea squall the sand gets in places you didn’t even know you had.It’ll have to be a rocky beach, then.”

“That sounds worse, honestly,” Iona says, wrinkling her nose. “Stones would leave bruises, and not even the fun kind.”

“Not if you pick the right one. Little rocks are bad. Big rocks, though, can do just fine if you have a blanket,” Elissa says, shrugging. “The real problem is with the tide, and if you get in the wrong spot, fish. But perhaps this is all just wistful thinking. I doubt I’ll ever get him to the beach in Highever.”

No, that likely never will happen. One, because she sincerely doubts Cailan has the climbing abilities required to reach that particular beach and two, because, well, there are  _ memories _ and she’s not entirely certain Gil would be okay with sharing that place so soon after. 

Sad, actually, because that was really rather enjoyable.

And worse, really, because now she’s thinking of Gil and her and Gil and then Cailan and well, none of that is particularly nice to think about. 

Lady Elissa goes very quiet, then, and Iona looks around with a towel over her arm. The steam from the bath has fogged up the windows, and the sunlight filters in strange and white. “Lady Elissa?”

The lavender oil glistens across the water when she moves, shimmering in shades of white and pale gold. Oriana had come with a bottle of rose as a gift, when she and Fergus first married. Nothing quite like Antivan roses, she’d said as if her new sister-law had any interest in such ladylike things, and Elissa had avoided using it until Gil said he liked the scent. “Just thinking.”

“Maybe you should not,” Iona says, softly. “It’s making you sad, my lady. This is not the time for sadness.”

Lady Elissa sinks down deeper into the water, until she’s submerged near entirely. Her hair floats around her in long dark snakes, and Iona shakes her head to herself. No, her lady’s not gone to a good place: somewhere far away, entrenched in Highever, and the bad memories are like a cloud.

If she doesn’t come back, soon, Iona may have to do something drastic.

“What are you thinking about, my lady?” Iona asks.

“Something I shouldn’t be,” she says. “I’m going to have to talk to Gil at some point, aren’t I?”

And  _ Maker _ that will be a conversation. They should have done this earlier, just accepted what was to come and been done with it. How exactly is she supposed to explain this? Elissa leans her head back against the tub and finds she misses the more decorative architecture of the Waking Sea with a sharp feeling deep behind her heart.

“Yes,” Iona says. She sits on the lip of the tub, sets the towel down, brushes off her knees for something to do. Lady Elissa is—delicate, in some ways. Especially when she gets like this, the melancholy drenching her down to her bones. It takes care and patience to bring her out of it.

It’s a good thing Iona has a large helping of both.

“But perhaps you should talk to me, first.”

“I’m not entirely sure what to say,” she admits. “How are you supposed to talk about something you can’t even explain to yourself?”

“How would you explain it to Amethyne?” Iona thinks of explaining the world to her eight-year-old, how big scary things can become so small. Denerim, and the Alienage, and even Iona’s near death in Highever: all of those things were big scary things that her daughter had understood in only the most base kind of way, and explaining them to her had helped Iona work through it on her own.

“I wouldn’t, because no eight-year-needs to hear this,” Elissa says, smiling wryly and no, those are not tears gathering an army behind her eyes. Then she sees Iona’s expression, the almost disappointment. Well, that won’t do. “Once upon a time, a girl met a boy and they fell in love in the way children do. Then they grew up, and the girl was married off, and the only reason she likes to keep her new husband around is that it keeps her from thinking of the boy.”

It is easier, she thinks. Cailan is pretty and fun, almost, and he’s a nice solid distraction from thinking of everything that happened before. Gil, though, is still Gil. The thing between them has been the only source of strength she’s had at times, and the loss of the seashells still cuts deeper than anything Howe could have thrown at her. 

That’s what it is, isn’t it? All she and Gil ever really had were seashells; delicate little things that crumble to dust when treated too harshly. 

Well, that’s a sad thought. 

“Eight-year-olds are better off knowing,” Iona tells her. “The world isn’t a kind place, Lady Elissa. Better to be prepared, Amethyne more than most.”

She stops for a minute, thinking, even as she absently begins to work the knots out of her lady’s hair. There’s something in the way her lady said  _ only _ , something lurking a little deeper than perhaps even Lady Elissa knows.

“Ser Gilmore understands, you know,” she says, instead, because bringing this whole mess to a head is going to take some careful handling; Lady Elissa is still so  _ raw _ , an angry thrashing thing deep inside of her screaming to get out. “He’s not a child, either. You needn’t coddle him.”

Elissa knows what Iona says is true, but there’s still a hesitance. “I don’t know what to say. Everything just sounds like it’s not enough.”

“It may not be,” Iona acknowledges. “But even then, something is better than nothing. And you wouldn’t be this torn if His Majesty meant nothing to you, my lady.”

Ah, there’s the bluntness. That’s what’s best about Iona, in a way. When all else fails, she can trust Iona to give her the truth with no frills. “He’s offered to take me to the summer palace,” she says, quiet. Iona’s hands are steady in her her hair, gentle as each tangle is unbound. “And I said yes.”

“And now you’re worried that Ser Gilmore will be hurt,” Iona finishes for her.

“No.” Andraste in a sea quall that’s the truth. Elissa knows Gil; knows him better than she knows Fergus. If he’s hurting, it’s for the same reason she is, not because of anything either one of them did. “I’m just not sure how to tell him that I think he needs to stay here. Since he came to Highever, we’ve never really been apart. It might be time to put some real distance between us, is all.”

_ Ah _ , Iona thinks,  _ so that’s what this is about _ . Lady Elissa is moving on, and she’s scared, because it’s a change and the end of the last piece of Highever she has a hold on. But she’s brave, of course she’s brave; she just needs a little help working through it. And it would be good for Ser Gilmore, as well, the space. In fact… 

“Growing up is scary, isn’t it,” Iona says, a smile hidden somewhere in her voice. “My lady, perhaps you and His Majesty should go to the summer palace alone.”

“What do you mean?” Alone? As in _alone_? Cailan’s a good warrior, for sure, and she’s well, Elissa Cousland, but alone is still a rather vulnerable situation for people so prominent. The summer palace, too, may not be well known, but there are _certain_ _portions_ of Fereldan that will know and likely be very happy to see her dead.

“I mean without anyone who is emotionally invested in either of you; not Ser Gilmore, not me, certainly not Chamberlain,” Iona says, already thinking of anyone in the Alienage as what could use a job. She’ll have to ask Soris. He’d know better than she, by far. “It’s not fair, my lady, to either of you. You’ve not had a chance to really know each other as people, you see?”

“Are we talking about Cailan or Gil?”

“His Majesty, my lady, although I suppose it could also apply to Ser Gilmore. But I meant—” she pauses, weighs the words precious like diamonds, “—I meant that you and King Cailan haven’t had a chance to simply be yourselves, on your own, without any distractions. You’ve not had a chance to get to know each other. And I think you should have that, even if it’s only for a little while.”

“Dane has to come,” Elissa says. “He doesn’t listen to anyone else. Soris too, then, I think,” and here’s the difficult part. She’s quite fond of this odd little group she’s got. They don’t quite match each other and in fact looking at them from the outside it seems like someone’s tried to create an armor set out of pieces that don’t fit together. “And I guess I need a new maid.”

“I’ll find someone suitable, my lady, you needn’t worry,” Iona says. She’ll ask Soris, for sure. And his getting out of the capital will be—good, for him, and it’ll give Iona the time she needs to squash that particular crush.  _ All the better _ , she thinks, pleased.

“Just no one like Nan, Maker rest her soul.” Elissa looks up at Iona, pleading eyes and every bit of youth still in her features on full display. “I don’t think I could deal with another Nan.”

“What, you don’t want someone who’ll breathe down your throat at every turn?” Iona asks, wry. “I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t, Lady Elissa, I thought it was your  _ favourite _ thing.”

“Oh, Iona,” Elissa says, pitying and also maybe a little envious that Iona’s memories of the woman will be so much better than hers. “Nan was behaving herself when you met her.”

“Maker,” Iona breathes. She remembers the yelling. There was so much yelling. “She must have been a  _ horror _ .”

“You have no idea, Iona.  _ No idea _ .”

 

—

 

_ Maker _ , why did he think this was a good idea? He should just go check on Soris. Yes, that would be much better than wearing a canyon into the floor with his pacing. The study door is firmly shut; he’s not even sure the king is in there. 

He’s not even sure he would know how to find the king. 

Which, of course, begs the question of what exactly he should say. 

Lissy won’t appreciate the ‘hurt her and I kill you’ speech; Fergus had had to greet the Prince of Starkhaven with a black eye after that. And Gil himself finds the ‘I love her so please don’t hurt her’ speech to be less of a speech and more of a plea that is about as likely to happen anytime in the near future as the two Divines making peace.

What would Iona do? 

Right, she’d—well, she’d sit King Cailan down and do everything she could to make this marriage work because it is the smartest choice. Ferelden needs a queen, needs an heir. That it has to be Lissy is just an unfortunate twist of fate. 

Gil stops his pacing to give a long look at the door. One knock and this can be done with. 

Or he can go check on Soris and just pretend this never happened. 

_ Maker _ .

Cailan needs to go for a walk.

He’s been fidgeting in his chair for the past half-hour, and he’s not getting lost in the old books the way he’d planned. Elissa is—somewhere, in her rooms, probably, still, and he doesn’t want to think about that, because then he’ll end up crossing the hall just to check in on her, and Iona will slam the door in his face the way she always does because she’s  _ frightening _ .

So he needs to walk.

He’s made the decision, up and out of his chair and across the room within a minute, opening the door to freedom and—

Ser Gilmore is pacing a hole in the floor. Cailan blinks.

“Hello, Ser Gilmore,” he says. “This is… unexpected. Do you need something?”

Well, there goes any chance at escape. Gil turns, stands straight as a sword, and does not bow. “Your Majesty,” he starts, “I was going to check on Soris. If you would like to join me?”  
Maker smite him now _please_. Check on Soris? Yes, that was—this was easier in Highever. Everything was easier in Highever. 

“Yeah, course!” says Cailan, face breaking into a bright grin. “How is he—” he searches for the right word, finds it between  _ doing _ and  _ handling the end of everything he’s ever known _ , “—adjusting?”

“As well as can be expected, Your Majesty,” Gil answers, thankful for the neutral ground. “I’ve been trying to give him some time alone in the armory to figure out which weapons he prefers. Apparently he only knows what he does from watching the guard practice.” Which, if anything, is downright terrifying. Soris had been a bit rough around the edges in the Arl’s estate, but the raw potential there—it’s not any wonder the Warden-Commander had tried to take Soris too. “He’ll make a good knight, I think.”

“Good,” Cailan says. He’s thought about the elf more than he’s realized, though he doesn’t know quite when all that thinking was happening; maybe when he was asleep, who knows. There’s something in the texture, there, the remembered tightness to the elf’s shoulders when he looked at the blonde elf girl who’d gone with Duncan that tugs at Cailan in a way he didn’t expect. It was something of old familial worry, and that might be why. “I’m glad. Is he in the practise yards?”

“He should be.” Gil knows, really, that that is exactly where they’ll find him. Absently, he starts to lead them towards the western yard the elf has been favoring the most. For all the varied weapons in the armory, Soris has been somewhat single-minded. “He’s been switching between greatswords to find which one he likes best, mostly. He’s a natural with them.”

“Greatswords? That’s impressive,” Cailan says. The last time he tried to use a greatsword, he’d ended up with his face in the ground and his arse in the air. He’d been overbalanced on the downswing. Suffice to say, it’d not turned out all that well.

And Soris is far slighter than Cailan is.

The western practise yards are, arguably, the least nice of all the practise yards. They’re the oldest, for certain, and the least well-maintained: the dummies here are straw and older than the dirt they’re stuck in, and the sandy pit isn’t swept more than once a season. The balconies overlooking the yard are much higher up, as well, which is good for tactical and training decisions but less good for giving the general public a show.

They’re also nearly always empty, which is probably why the elf picked them in the first place.

“It is. I’m not too good with them,” Gil admits, thinking back to all the training in Highever. He’d not the best with greatswords, but at least he wasn’t Fergus, who ended up being banned for life from even touching a greatsword. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to train him as he needs, though. Any suggestions on someone Lissy will approve of?” And then he realizes exactly what he’s said and to whom he is speaking and well, hellfire. “Sorry, Your Majesty,” he says, mumbles really, “I meant Lady Elissa.”

“Lissy?” Cailan asks. “Is that what you used to call her?”

“Fergus called her that, originally, I think, but it may have been started by someone else.” Gil speaks slowly, carefully. These are precious memories, fragile glass things that must be handled with the utmost care. “About a week after I’d arrived, we were training and it ended with me face down in the mud and her standing over me demanding I call her Lissy like everyone else.”

Cailan has no trouble imagining it. A tiny Elissa, demanding equality.

It’s not like it’s that much different, now.

He glances at Ser Gilmore out of the corner of his eye, sees the tight prickle of anxiety along his shoulders. It’s the nickname, of course it is, because Ser Gilmore doesn’t know him well enough to know that he’s never stood for propriety or decorum.

“I don’t mind,” Cailan says. “That you call her that, I mean. It doesn’t matter, not to me.”

_ She was yours, first _ , he thinks, and swallows hard.

“She’ll probably demand you call her that too, at some point.” And this is where the tightness in his chest gets to be more than he can bear because this is it, isn’t it? This more of a goodbye than saying it to Lissy herself. “She doesn’t much care for formality.”

“I know,” Cailan says, and he’s smiling but it’s strange and shadowed and he wishes it wasn’t. “But I don’t think she’ll want me calling her that.”

Gil glances outside as they pass a window. The sky over Denerim is different than Highever’s. It’s paler, a washed out blue rather than the vibrant robin’s egg that can only come from being offset against the indigo of the sea. “Maybe not. It’s a bit of Highever, that’s all.”

“It’s not my place,” Cailan says, very quietly, as they round a bend and the western practise yard unfurls in front of them.

_ Maker _ , he thinks, shocked briefly out of the melancholy by the sheer  _ ugliness _ of the yard.  _ This really needs some work _ .

Gil winces, forgetting who he’s with when they step into the yard just in time to see a greatsword cleave right through a dummy. That’s not a move he knows, but Soris has the damn weapon balanced perfectly, it looks like. Andraste, this elf is  _ scary _ . “Would it be possible to get better equipment in this yard?” he asks. “I don’t think what’s here is going to survive for long.”

“This place looks like a graveyard, it’s depressing,” says Cailan. “I’ll talk to Chamberlain, he’ll do something about it.”

“Armor as well,” Gil says, looking closer at the splintmail fitting far too loose on the elf’s slight frame. “If we’re going to have odd bodies in the queensguard, we’re going to need armor that actually fits them.”

And really, he’s fairly certain it’s not going to stop at an elf. Lissy has never, in all the years he’s known her, given one whit what someone’s background is. So long as they can do the job and are loyal, they’re good. Honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if she recruited a Qunari or a dwarf. 

He stops and thinks about it. Armor is going to be a pain in the arse because knowing Lissy, the queensguard is more than likely going to end up with a Qunari and a dwarf at some point. Probably a few more elves, too. And Mabari, of course. There will probably be more Mabari than anything.

“We should probably find a decent armourer,” Cailan says, more to himself than anything. He squints up at the sky, trying to think of the armourers in Denerim: not Wade, Elissa would kill the man in about thirty seconds for being such an utter waste of talent. There’s a dwarven armourer with a name he can’t remember, but they’re a merchant family and Cailan is loathe to harm Denerim’s economy any more than it has been. There’s Mikhail Dryden, as well, and though the family as a whole is a superstitious lot, that  _ is _ a possibility.

“Highever’s got a couple,” Gil says, staying focused on the way Soris is moving with the sword. Kid’s definitely good, but could use a greatsword actually built for someone so slight, maybe? He doubts the armorer at the castle survived; man was loyal to a fault. The armorer in the city proper will be loathe to move; he’s elf-blooded and perfectly at home in Highever where everyone is more concerned with the quality of his work than his family. There is that elven apprentice, but same issue. None of the dwarves will move; the Merchant’s Guild in Kirkwall is too important to their trade. He sighs, armoring a guard should not be this difficult. “But none will work here.”

“How is he doing that?” Cailan wonders aloud, folds his arms over the balcony railing to watch the way Soris cuts through the straw dummies like the sword isn’t longer than he is. It’s good, he’s good, but that he needs someone who knows the finer points of two-handed weapon use is clear.

Maker, there’s so much to  _ do _ .

“Some—the Maker must like him,” Gil answers, arms crossed over his chest, trying to ignore the memory of the Chantry Mothers’ chiding. “That’s all I can say. I really do need to find him a better teacher. There’s no way I can train him if he’s that good on his own.” He’s not quite sure what he’s expecting, but it’s... _ something _ else. Certainly not the king just standing there, silently staring at the sky. “Your Majesty?”

“Ah, sorry, I was just thinking, I might know someone we could ask about armour,” Cailan says, slowly, remembering the mud and the stricken look on the other boy’s face. “He might be hard to find, though.”

Oh no. Gil  _ knows _ that expression. It’s the same one he’s seen Lissy with, the one that’s between guilty and embarrassed and always goes with that sinking feeling that nothing is going to end well. “What did you do?”

“Nothing, nothing!” Cailan says quick as he can, waves the memory of the two very distinct pieces of his father’s sword away. “Nothing we couldn’t fix, anyway. He’s an old friend—” and yes, that is a very loose use of the word  _ friend _ , “—but he’ll be amenable, I think.”

He doesn’t say that he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Mikhail Dryden in a decade, but it makes no difference. Talent like that doesn’t go unnoticed for long, no matter how well a person conceals themselves, and Cailan can’t imagine Mikhail  _ willingly _ giving up on smithing.

“Amenable to working for you,” Gil says, looking back at Soris and thinking they need an armorer rather sooner than later, because that splintmail isn’t going to pass the queen’s inspections, “or amenable to working for Lissy?”

“Elissa, obviously,” Cailan says, grin going sharp and shark-like. “I doubt he’s forgiven  _ me _ yet.”

“Well, if he can make strong armor and good weapons for an elf and whatever else she decides to recruit in the future, he should do just fine.” Gil can’t quite fight the growing smile on his own face. “And she will recruit soldiers the nobles won’t like.”

“Good,” Cailan says, “they could do with some rattling.”

Gil won’t ask. The upper aristocracy has never been of much interest, outside of whatever trouble the Cousland siblings had stirred up because no one was watching them. “I hope you don’t have a problem with other races, then. She’ll recruit the best, regardless of where they come from or what they look like. Even if that means taking on a Qunari guard or an apostate mage.” He doesn’t mention dwarves or more elves. Those should be obvious enough. But Maker help them all if Lissy sets her mind of a guard that will have the nobles in revolt. “If given enough leeway, she’ll have more than just the nobles breathing down your neck.”

“I’ve had worse than that,” Cailan says, thinks of his father’s cold indifference, the smirking empty eyes at court. Qunari, elven, dwarven, mage; it makes no difference. People are alike in cruelty. “And as long as whoever it is does what they say they’ll do, I’ve no reason to quarrel with them.”

Not quite what he was expecting, but a good answer. “You should get along just fine with her, then,” he says, quiet, attention mostly focused on the elf in the yard. “Just watch her back, please? She doesn’t always think things through, not when nobles or the Chantry are involved.”

“You say that like you think I’m any better,” Cailan mutters under his breath. “That was Anora’s job.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, you’re still a Theirin. That gives you a certain kind of protection no one else has in this country.” He sighs, thinking a tad bitterly of the Fereldans who came to Highever and remembered life before the occupation ended. “There’s still bad blood between the Couslands and many in this country for what they did when the Orlesians came.”

“Yes, I know,” Cailan says. But he thinks of the books in his mother’s study that he’d grown up reading, the old tales of rulers gone power-mad and marrying their sisters to keep the line pure, and knows that blood isn’t everything.

But Ser Gilmore is right, in this.

“I won’t let her come to harm,” Cailan says, quiet. “I swear on my life.”

“That’s all I ask,” says Gil. “And if you can, please make her happy.”

“I can’t promise that,” Cailan says, because he can’t, he really can’t, he can’t pretend that Elissa will be happy just because he wants her to be, because that’s not the way people are. And Cailan’s not an idiot, at least not all the time, so he drops his voice and murmurs, “but I can spend the rest of my life trying.”

Gil looks down at the ground directly beneath the balcony, sighs, thinks that maybe Eamon was on to something when the Arl suggested this particular match. “Then you should probably know she likes seashells more than flowers,” he says, and tries to ignore the way it feels like a farewell to something old and precious.

“Why am I not surprised,” Cailan asks, but it’s not really a question that needs an answer. Out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he can see Ser Gilmore saying a very quiet, intensely private goodbye.

And Cailan knows all about those.

Best to change the subject, and pretend like he hadn’t seen at all.

“Do you think he’s noticed us, yet?” he asks, nods towards where Soris is still cutting through the practise dummies like they’re made of butter.

“I doubt it,” Gil says. There’s only two dummies left at this point,  _ Maker _ where did this elf come from? There’s no way he grew up in the Denerim Alienage. “Need to work on that. I don’t even think he noticed his cousin at the wedding.”

“His cousin?” Cailan asks. “The little blonde elf with Duncan, you mean?”

“That would be her,” Gil replies. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice her. The Grand Cleric spent half the wedding glaring murder at the poor girl.”

“Does the Grand Cleric ever do  _ anything _ but glare murder at people?” Cailan asks, because,  _ really _ , he has no memories of the Grand Cleric doing anything else. “She’s—”

He stops, because he can’t say what he was just going to say, that’s probably blasphemy.

“—old,” he goes with.

(Which is also probably blasphemy, now that he thinks about it. Andraste, he needs to  _ learn _ .)

Gil chooses not to answer that. There’s history there, something unique to the royal family and the city of Denerim. It’s nothing he needs to worry about, so he instead asks, “Do you think we should tell him we’re here?”

“Do you think he’ll notice if we don’t?”

“Probably not,” says Gil, reaching down to his boot for a dagger. There are probably better ways to alert the elf, but none so effective at making a point. No pun intended, of course. Throwing daggers has never really been his strong suit, but the blade flies true, landing a ways away from the elf. 

Who just pauses, mid-swing like it’s  _ nothing _ to be twirling a sword longer than he is around, and finally looks up at them and  _ waves _ like this is completely normal.

“Let’s go talk to him, then,” Cailan says, grinning and waving back like a madman because why not, really, what’s it going to hurt. He thinks Ser Gilmore sighs behind him, but then he’s swinging down the stairs without another thought.

_ Ser Gilmore could probably use a few moments of privacy _ , Cailan thinks, hanging back for long moments before he follows the other man down.  _ It can’t hurt _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes: so we're pretty sure this is going to hit 50-ish chapters. reasonably sure. we're currently gearing up to Ostagar. 
> 
> notes the second: the subtitle for this chapter is "i am the reason we can't have nice things it is me" via wren


	8. there is a crack in the door filled with light

She opens her eyes to wan, concerned faces.

“Ow,” Solona says, voice hoarse. “Can I not do that again?”

“You won’t have to repeat that, child,” Irving says, smiling down at her. He knew this one would do just fine, and sure enough, she exceeded expectations. He looks askance at Greagoir, waiting for the Templar’s reaction. 

The cool blue-red of templar magic washes over Solona for a moment, and she stays very, very still as it does. She’d done it, she’d avoided the demon’s temptation, she knows she did, she remembers the thick cloy of the thing’s want under her tongue,  _ let me out, let me out _ —but still, it never does any good to annoy the templars, even when they’ve known her her whole entire life.

“She is clean of demonic influence,” says the Knight-Commander, at last. He looks down at her, and she doesn’t remember the last time she saw relief on his face, but she sees it now, and she thinks:  _ oh, he was worried about me _ .

“Congratulations,” he says, and it’s so kind, it’s so terribly, sadly kind.

“Thank you, Knight-Commander,” she says, and tries to get up, but her legs don’t work. She feels like she’s been standing for days, the muscles too loosey-goosey to hold her up. She flushes down to the roots of her hair. “Um, First Enchanter, my legs—”

“That’s normal,” he says, stepping back to give her a little air and holds out a hand. “The Fade is very different from our world. It can take a moment to fully recover.”

He’s right of course, and though Solona can feel her control coming back a moment later, but she still takes the offered hand. For a moment, the First Enchanter holds her a little tighter than she’d expected, and she realizes that it’s as close to a hug as he can give her with the templars watching on.

“Thank you, First Enchanter,” she says, heart in her throat. “I’m alright now.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a glance of Ser Cullen’s face. He’s staring at her again, Andraste, he’s always staring so, and she smiles at him just a little. Her Harrowing is over, and she’s not dead or an abomination or  _ worse _ and the world hasn’t ended. She can afford the boy a smile, even as the exhaustion crashes over her. She wants to go crawl beneath the covers of Neria’s bed and sleep for a whole week. She doesn’t even think the First Enchanter would begrudge it of her, either—everyone always gets to be a little bit coddled after their Harrowing. It is not, after all, a fantastic experience. Solona thinks if she never sees the Fade again while she’s awake, she won’t be upset. Abominations and blood and  _ Templars _ she can handle, but the blurred-edge _ twisting _ of her vision in the Fade is another matter entirely.

“Greagoir, if I can take her back to her room now?” Irving asks, smiling gently as if they both don’t know that Solona will be getting to the bunk  _ above _ hers instead. They’ll need to talk after, both Neria and Solona as well as Greagoir and himself. It’s time to move both the girls up to mage quarters. So sad, really, to see them grow up so fast. Seems only yesterday that he and Greagoir were walking through the front door with baby Neria and little Solona came running up to see the newest mage. 

Oh, Andraste, her  _ room _ , the thought of her  _ room _ and her  _ bed _ and her silly best friend nearly sends Solona into tears, and she doesn’t know why. It’s not like she didn’t see Neria ten minutes before she went into the Harrowing Chamber, but it feels like it was so, so long ago, like a whole Age has gone by. She’s not wanted anything else so much, ever.

“I suppose,” Greagoir sighs, and though he sounds put upon, she knows he doesn’t really mean it. His eyes are almost twinkling. Solona has to restrain herself from throwing her arms around him, too. “Get some rest, girl, you’ll need it.”

“I know,” Solona says, ducks her head in acknowledgement and tries not to preen under the praise. Most have to stay a day or two in the Harrowing Chamber, just in case; to be let out right afterwards is the biggest compliment he could give her. The lump in her throat grows ever larger.

“Thank you, Knight-Commander,” she says a second time. “Thank you.”

He nods, a little imperious, and Solona allows the First Enchanter to very gently steer her in the direction of the door. She’s still a tad numb; she’d been expecting to sleep on a solid stone floor for the next few nights, like what she’s read about camping but without the blankets.

But none of this matters, because as soon as she’s stepped out of the Harrowing Chamber’s version of a foyer and onto the fourth floor of Tower, Solona is knocked off her feet by a blur of white hair and skinny arms around her waist. And suddenly, the world is upright again, because of  _ course _ Neria was waiting for her.

Irving sighs, heavy and a little fond, waiting until the two detangle enough to tell where one ends and the other begins before saying, “Neria, you are not supposed to know when a mage has been taken for their Harrowing.”

She does her best to look solemn, blue-green eyes still twinkling impishly. “But Uncle Irving, it’s Sonny. I always know when she’s in the Fade. It’s too easy to track her there.”

“Nerry,” Solona swats at her. “Don’t be creepy, you’re not supposed to say things like that!”

“But it’s true!” 

“I know, goose, but  _ they _ don’t need to know that!” and she doesn’t mean the First Enchanter, because the First Enchanter’s always known what Neria is capable of; she means the Templars. She always means the Templars, when she says it like that.  _ They _ .

“She’s right, oleander,” Irving says, reaching down to smooth out the girl’s white hair. “Greagoir will not be able to protect you for long if the other Templars learn the truth.”

Neria frowns, one cheek inflated with air. “I’ll keep quiet if I have to.” But really, she’ll keep quiet because the Templars are too silly to know what the real threat is. Poor souls. They can’t see a thing, can they?

“I know it’s hard,” Solona says consolingly, and then begins the long process of standing up. Her hair is everywhere, long and black and impossible to control as ever. If only it would stay in a braid. “Now get off, my bed is calling my name. I’m going to sleep for a week. You’re coming with me, no, you don’t have a choice.”

“I’m wide awake, why would I go to sleep?” Neria follows her all the same. It’s the best place to hide, she’s found. Solona is blinding in her beauty and her power. No one notices the shadow. No one ever notices the shadow. 

And Irving just watches them go, still thinking of the little girls who first arrived here all those years ago. 

(Or, well, girl and baby. Neria couldn’t have been more than a couple of months out of the womb, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Solona grins. “Because tomorrow we move up to the mage quarters, that’s why. And, well, I guess you don’t  _ have _ to come, but if I’m asleep, you’ll have to talk to the other apprentices instead.”

Neria wrinkles her nose. “No, I think I’ve been in the apprentice quarters for long enough.”

“That’s what I figured,” Solona says, smiling as she reaches over to tap Neria’s nose fondly. Silly Nerry, can’t stand the apprentices even on her best day. “We can go pack everything up right now, if you’d like, I’m sure the First Enchanter’s got a room waiting, you know how he is.”

“I’ve got a room,” Neria corrects. “You’d have to stay in my bed, because they held off on getting you one just in case.”

“How rude of them,” Solona says, lips parting over her teeth in quiet laughter. As though the First Enchanter would think they’d not share a room; she and Nerry haven’t slept more than two feet away from each other as long as she can remember. And as if she’s about to start now. They’re sisters, twins, two halves of the same whole, and there are days when Solona loves Nerry so much she can’t even stand it, when it leaves her scooped-out-empty. When the Templars come to take someone away and Solona gets a flash of her mother’s face, it’s Nerry’s small hands on her cheeks that bring her back.

There’s no one in the world that can burn Solona clean the way Nerry does, and that’s precisely the way she likes it.

Neria giggles, skipping ahead. She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Isn’t it just? Even Mouse knew you would be okay.”

But, of course no one could listen to Mouse. It’s like listening to her. The illusions of the Fade can be so strong for some people. Silly little things, all of them. Just draw the veil back and there is  _ so much _ that can be learned. That would mean admitting so much is wrong, though. People don’t like it when their fragile certainties are proven false.

“Your Mouse tried to kill me, dear,” Solona tells her drily. “He was very insistent about it, in fact.”

Neria shakes her head, white hair swinging everywhere. “He has to do that for everyone. He doesn’t really mean it, especially for you,” she smiles, the expression distant. “Besides, he knows not to hurt you. I’d have to kill him if he did.”

“Nerry,” Solona says, gentle, “come back to me, darling, the Fade doesn’t need you right now.”

She blinks, focus slowly coming back. “Sorry, swan.”

“No, it’s alright, you know I just worry,” Solona says, and tucks her arm through Nerry’s. It’s the easiest way to anchor her back into the world; it’s physical in a way the Fade can’t be, though it consumes so much of Neria’s energy to remain on one side of Veil.

Sometimes, Solona wishes she’d picked a different best friend.

But then Nerry does something like spell her ink rainbow-coloured, or help her coax flowers out of the dead ground, or find her an ancient healing tome that the rest of the world’s forgotten, and Solona—Solona can’t imagine ever needing anyone else. She knows, rationally, that all the other mages think she’s half-mad because she’s prone to keeping to herself and that she doesn’t play their odd little romance games, but romance is so… She doesn’t know the word.  _ Overrated _ , she thinks, is the word. It’s overrated and time-consuming and  _ boring _ , because the only people she’s ever wanted to kiss are girls, and the girls who  _ also _ want to kiss girls all think she’s kissing Nerry.

In what universe, Solona would like to ask, is she kissing Nerry? There is  _ no universe _ in which she’s kissing Nerry, the thought is horrible.

Not to mention, she doesn’t have  _ time _ to be kissing anyone, because she’s far too busy keeping Neria out of trouble, and Neria is, well,  _ Nerry _ .

“You don’t have to,” Neria says, softly, leaning her head against Solona’s shoulder. Arm, actually. It’s not her fault Solona is so tall. “There’s nothing over there that would hurt me. It’s just an in-between place.”

She doesn’t say more. Can’t. There are just some things about the Fade that she will never speak of. Too much danger there. Too much, too much, and not from the Fade. She won’t do that to Solona; can’t do that to Solona. So she nuzzles her cheek against Solona’s arm and holds on just a little tighter. 

_ No _ , she thinks,  _ I’ll not let them get her _ .

Helpless affection takes Solona over, then. Of course Neria would think that nothing in the Fade would hurt her, because that’s just the way she is, impossible and immovable and immortal all at once. She doesn’t think about demons or spirits or any of it:  _ it’s just an in-between place _ , she says, and she’s said it before, too.

But it’s never  _ really _ just an in-between place, Solona knows. Dark things live there, and Maker grant her strength, she knows that when Nerry goes there, she’s going to follow. Dark things or not, Solona  _ can’t _ leave her alone. It’s not an option. It never has been.

So she runs her hand over Nerry’s hair, and tries to pull on the most mischievous smile she can. “Let’s go pack, then, shall we?”

“Pack what, cygnet?” Neria says, sighs, really, thinking of the cramped, winding corridors of the apprentice’s quarters. Yes, she’ll be quite pleased to be out of there once and for all. It’s been  _ dreadful _ being stuck there for so long, all because Uncle Greagoir needed an alarm. “It’s not like we’ve got much. ‘Sides each other, that is.”

“We do have  _ some _ things,” Solona says, thinking of the little locker at the foot of her bed. She’s got an amulet in there that she  _ thinks _ belonged to her mother, and an old book of nursery rhymes with flowers pressed to dry between the pages. A spare set of robes, too, but she won’t have to wear the dreary blue things anymore, thank the Maker. “ _ Some _ .”

Neria shrugs a little. “You do, yes,” and she thinks of the little green blanket, the one with the oleanders embroidered in one corner, stored beneath the spare quilts in her room in the mage’s quarters. The one she didn’t want anyone seeing, just in case someone too young to remember realized what it means. “We can go upstairs tonight if you’d like, but one last night in the apprentice quarters won’t hurt. We don’t want to scare the children by disappearing in the night, now do we?”

“You would,” Solona smiles at her, pokes her in the side. “Because you think it’s funny, and don’t pretend you don’t.”

“Maybe,” she pouts, “but then Uncle Greagoir would yell about me the way he does that Anderfel boy.”

“I doubt that,” Solona murmurs, thinks of the boy Nerry’s referring to that both the First Enchanter and the Knight-Commander spend so much of their time trying to keep from interacting with her best friend. And for good reason, she knows, because it’s likely that together Nerry and that boy would raze the Circle to the ground, and then work their way through the Chantry and everyone else besides.

It’s the only secret Solona’s ever kept from Neria, and it’s one she’ll take to her grave.

( _ He’s not a boy _ , something murmurs in the back of Solona’s head,  _ he’s only a few years younger than you! _ But she ignores it because age doesn’t matter, he’s a child until he stops trying to escape. No one escapes the Templars. No one. Not even Anders, grinning out of the corner of his mouth over the old books, muttering horrible things about Senior Enchanter Wynne.)

“You’re thinking too hard again, cygnet.” Neria won’t ask about what, because Solona never asks exactly what’s she’s been up to in the Fade, so she’ll give Sonny some space about this. It’s only fair. 

“And you’re not thinking hard enough,” Solona teases back. “I don’t think the Knight-Commander could yell at you if he tried.”

Neria looks up at her, eyes wide and soulfull. “You don’t remember the incident with Ines, do you?” it had been an accident, honest. She’d only been four at the time; how was she supposed to know that rashvine couldn’t be used as kindling? “Uncle Irving was laughing too hard, so Uncle Greagoir had to do the scolding.”

Solona does remember it, actually. She just tries very, very hard not to. “I’d almost left that behind, thanks, duck, I appreciate the reminder so much.”

The apprentice quarters have high ceilings, and that’s really the only good thing Solona can say about them. They are a tightly-packed place, and all of the apprentices are thrown in higgledy-piggledy regardless of age or race or where they happen to be at in their training. There’s no  _ sense _ to it, but that’s not surprising: Solona’s found that most Circle mages have more magic than sense. She’s pleased to say she isn’t one of them, but probably she would be if she hadn’t grown up worrying about Nerry as often as she did.

But it is what it is, and the softly pulsing orbs on the walls throw golden-coloured shadows everywhere. Most of the other apprentices are down at supper; they won’t know she’s Harrowed at all. It’s a strange thought, and she’s about to say so, when she realizes that someone is sitting at the foot of her bed.

“Jowan, what are you doing here?”

Neria bristles, nails turning in towards Solona’s skin. “You’re going to get it all over the bed! Go away!”

And realizes a moment later neither one probably knows what she means. She can’t quite remember, sometimes, that people don’t see the same things she does. But she sees it, the blood all over him; handprints of invisible creatures waiting to drag him through the veil to the darkest places where no one should ever go. She needs to go find Uncle Greagoir, needs him now, needs him to be Knight-Commander because this is  _ exactly _ why she’s stayed in the apprentice quarters. 

Boo. She was just about to be able to  _ leave _ . 

“Neria,” Solona murmurs. “He’s shaking.”

And he is shaking, Solona thinks, a slight tremor to his hands as he looks up at them like he doesn’t quite know what to say. She forgets that other people don’t always know what to do with Nerry when she gets like this: she never tells Solona why. There’s a reason for that, probably, but right now isn’t the time.

“Jowan, what’s wrong?”

“Swan, no. We need to go,” Neria whines, voice low, eyes never leaving him. 

“They’re going to make me Tranquil,” Jowan says.

Solona takes in a sharp little breath. Tranquil? They’re going to make him Tranquil? No, they can’t, they  _ couldn’t _ , why on earth would they make him Tranquil? Tranquility is for—for people who can’t control their magic well enough to keep the demons at bay. It’s for people who might become  _ abominations _ , for blood mages and their ilk. And she can feel Nerry at her elbow, hovering, disgust rolling off her shoulders, but Solona can’t—can’t  _ think _ .

“That can’t be right, Jowan, the First Enchanter would never allow it,” she says, trying to control her heart rate. “The Templars don’t have that power without Irving’s say so.”

“They’re going to!” he says, and his eyes are wild. “I saw—I saw a letter, there was a letter, and they’re going to, and I can’t—there’s someone I—I didn’t—”

A letter? Neria can think of one place a letter like that could be found, and she’s hissing, “Swan, don’t listen him,” not if he’s been snooping in Uncle Irving’s office. That’s bad, that’s very bad, especially with the handprints all over him like that.

Solona shoots Nerry a very pointed look. Yes, she knows that Jowan’s probably lying through his teeth, but the sweat on his lip is real fear. The last time this happened… 

The last time this happened, a girl died.

And Solona wants to prevent that, if she can. So she breathes deeply. “Slow down, Jowan. Tell me what’s going on, from the  _ beginning _ . Duckling, please, just listen, and then we’ll decide, alright?”

A bit of blood trails out from where Neria’s nails dig into Solona’s arm, and a flash of fear races down her spine. Quickly, quickly, withdraw the nails, remember the healing spells Sonny’s always practicing and close the wound.  _ There _ , no more blood. No more blood. That’s good. “I don’t trust him,” she says into Solona’s skin, so quiet it’s more the movement of lips than actual words. “Please don’t trust him.”

Solona touches her, fingers soft in the indent of her palm, and traces out:  _ I don’t _ .

“From the beginning, Jowan,” she says again.

And he does.

He tells them about Lily, the Chantry sister he’s fallen in love with, and how they want to leave the Circle and start a new life somewhere else. He tells them about the letter—and Solona frowns when he says he found it in Irving’s office, because that’s not a good sign, but she doesn’t say it aloud—and there’s terror in his eyes, now, as he thinks about the end of it all, the loss of the connection to the Fade. He tells them about the apprentice phylacteries in the basement. He tells them everything, and then he says:  _ please _ .

Solona blows her breath out of her lungs.

“I can’t, Jowan,” she says, “you know I can’t. I just Harrowed, they’ll be watching me like a  _ hawk _ . If I put one toe out of line…”

She lets it hang, because they both know what happens to Harrowed mages who go rogue. They don’t get Tranquil. They get dead.

“Jowan, just go away,” Neria says. “Swan’s tired.”

“I—” he says, mouth a hard crumpled line. “I’ll go. If you change your mind, I’ll be… I’ll be in the Chantry. You can come meet Lily, if you’d like.”

And then he gets up and walks off, like the whole conversation never happened. Solona’s a little dizzy with the sudden change in him; she’d forgotten he could be like that when he didn’t get his way.

“We have to tell Irving,” she says, faintly. “A Chantry sister… Maker, he’s lost his mind.”

“He’s lost more than that,” Neria answers. “And yes, Uncle Irving needs to know.”

He should be in his office; that’s always where he goes after Harrowings. He should be there with Uncle Greagoir, actually, and a snifter of good Antivan brandy because that’s always the tradition. One drink for a successful Harrowing, three for a bad one. 

“Do you ever think we’ll have a quiet life? Ever?” Solona asks, still dazed. “Will we ever be that lucky?”

“Probably not,” Neria says. “It’s us. We don’t do quiet.”

“I can hope,” Solona says. “I have  _ got _ to hope. Come on, let’s go—” talk to Irving, break a friend’s trust, the whole shebang. But Nerry’s twitching, a little, and her movements are all jerky and strange. And for all the Solona has never liked unnecessary death, if Jowan is making Nerry like  _ this _ , then it’s not really unnecessary at all, is it.

It’s just that the Templars are so…

She shakes her head to herself, and shudders. The Templars are so  _ terrible _ , and they’re always watching, always staring, their eyes burning through her robes to the skin underneath, and she knows they’d all flay her alive if they could.

“—talk to Irving,” she finishes.

Neria all but drags Solona towards the office. If only they could move faster. The rules of magic—just because no one’s figured out how to do it yet, doesn’t mean there isn’t way to use magic for travel. It would be awfully helpful right now, to be able to blink and be somewhere new. She knows Sonny is probably confused, rightly so, but she doesn’t know how to explain the handprints and what they mean: that Jowan is a like a bomb, fuse very quickly burning away and sometime in the very near future, he’s going to go off and there  _ will  _ be unnecessary death. 

When blood mages go boom, there’s always casualties. 

She’s fairly certain the Chantry will not like one of it’s sisters being caught in the crossfire.

Irving needs to know. Greagoir needs to know. They needed to have known before the handprints got to be so  _ obvious _ . How did she miss this? How? She’s stayed in the apprentice quarters so long for this very purpose. She’s supposed to warn them when someone goes wrong.

She’s supposed to stop it before it gets this bad. 

Her heart is racing, flutter-fast, when she drags Solona around the last corner and into Irving’s office. 

Only—

—Irving isn’t alone, and it’s not Uncle Greagoir. 

Neria blinks.  _ Well _ , she thinks _ , this is different _ . “Sorry, are we interrupting?”

“Not really,” says a blonde elf off to the side, yawning a little. Her canines are sharp white points in the cavern of her mouth.

Solona’s frozen in place, watching them; the man’s in armour, and for a minute her brain blares  _ GET AWAY GET AWAY _ , until it filters in that it’s not Templar armour at all. It’s—different, somehow, the skirt’s the wrong colour, and there isn’t a Sword of Mercy inscribed on the breastplate. She breathes again.

“Neria,” she says, “I think the First Enchanter is busy, we can come back later—”

“No, wait,” Irving says, stepping forward just a bit. “We were actually just talking about you, Solona. There’s someone here you need to meet.”

“About… me?” Solona tips her head. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Not at all.” Iriving turns to the visitors. “Duncan, this is Solona. She’s one of our best healers. Solona, this is Warden-Commander Duncan.”

“Oh, Warden-Commander, hello,” Solona gulps out.  _ Don’t hide behind your hair, Sonny _ , she tells herself, and swallows down the rising bile. What in the Maker’s name is the Warden-Commander doing here? That can’t be a good thing, that can  _ never _ be a good thing, the Wardens mean darkspawn and darkspawn means the taint and the taint means— “I’m pleased to meet you. My name’s Solona.”

“Neria,” the little elf gives, eyes trained on the shadows clinging to him.  _ You’re going to die soon _ , she thinks, but doesn’t say it. Doesn’t say much of anything else, in fact. This is one of those times when it’s just better to hide in Sonny’s shadow. Things are much better there. 

Nerry ducks into Solona’s side; she’s near out of the Warden-Commander’s sight, there, or at least she feels she is. Sonny doesn’t look down when Nerry’s fingers curl into the fabric of her robes at her hip, but only because she knows that would draw their attention, and that’s the last thing either of them want.

So Solona does what she always does when Nerry needs to hide: she hitches on her brightest, sweetest smile, and allows herself to become the center of attention. It’s not really something she can explain—it’s a shift in stance, a tilt in jaw, a straightening in the spine. She brushes her hair out of her face, the feather-soft edges of it out of her eyes at last—but there it is. She can feel it happening, the way everyone in the room orients themselves towards her, even though they don’t know they’re doing it.

She takes a deep, fortifying breath, and asks, smile dazzling, “How can I help?”

Duncan does his best to relax his posture. Kallian is still on edge and Lyna is doing her best to melt into the shadows of Irving’s office. Frightening mages is never a good idea, he’s found, does his best to not wince at the memory of the one time Maric was foolish enough to sneak up on Fiona. 

(Such a strange memory to arise now of all times. This was not Fiona’s Circle, is not her Circle now and Maric is gone forever. Is this what it is like at the end? He has heard, from older Wardens before they left, that sometimes memories thought lost can reveal themselves anew. They said it was the Maker giving them a last chance to make peace before the Deep Roads took them. Duncan had always thought it was nonsense and nothing more.)

These two young mages, though quite young from the look of the little elf, have an air of danger around them. Powerful, then, and one of them a promising healer. Spirit Healers are rarely allowed outside the Circle. If he can—well, time will tell. It would certainly help keep Lyna stable until after Orzammar. 

“It is a pleasure to meet you. We have something of a difficult situation here with one of my recruits,” he says, “but that can be discussed in the morning, after the senior healers are gathered. It has been a long journey. My companions could do with a little rest.”

Irving’s got a funny little smile on his face, one that Solona’s never seen before. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it  _ scheming _ .

“Girls, could you take our guests to their rooms?” he asks. “I must speak to the Warden-Commander, and I am sure his companions will get lost in the hallways. We can’t go about scaring the apprentices, you know.”

Solona allows herself one single nervous glance at Nerry before she hardens her resolve. “Of course, First Enchanter,” she says. She looks to the two elves, and shrugs a little, dazzling smile melting into something a little more real. “Sorry, I didn’t get your names.”

“No, I had not yet given them. I am Duncan,” he says, motioning towards his companions. “This is Kallian and Lyna.”

_ They’re a striking pair _ , Solona thinks, idly.  _ One dark and the other light _ . The dark one is very  _ dark _ , too, thought she can’t really put a finger on why. It’s the tattoos, maybe—the Dalish markings shadow the other girl’s face in a way that she isn’t used to. But it’s the blonde one who opens her mouth to speak.

“Kally,” she says, shaking out her hair so it’s a lion’s mane around her face, “if you call me Kallian, I’ll have to kill you.”

“Just Lyna will do,” the hunter says, slowly, taking a small step towards the light.

“Lyna, then,” Solona smiles, “and Kally. The guest wing is this way, if you’ll follow me. Kinloch Hold can be… confusing, for people who’ve not grown up here.”

Neria follows them, a step and a half behind Sonny. At the door, she turns to give Irving her best  _ there is a blood mage in the tower we need to talk  _ look, and hopes he understands. 

The First Enchanter blinks, and nods very, very slowly in reply.

“Something important?” Duncan asks, somewhat baffled. That was the oddest exchange he has seen in years, but something in the air suggests importance. Importance in the air in a place of magic is only rarely a good thing. 

“Ah,” says Irving, shaking his head ruefully. A blood mage, then. He’s getting  _ far _ too old for this. “Tower politics. Sit down, my old friend, we must talk.”

Duncan takes the offered seat. “Is everything alright, Irving? Still having problems with that runaway? What is his name, again?”

“We call him Anders, as you well know,” Irving tells him, trying very hard for it to not come out as grumpy as he feels. Duncan  _ would _ bring the boy up, he enjoys watching Irving squirm far too much. “Greagoir locked him in solitary, and last I checked, he’s still there. It’s a pity, the boy is a natural healer.”

“I have told you before, he is welcome to join the Wardens,” says Duncan, watches as the stress eats away at Irving’s face. It had been such a shame, really, when Irving chose to stay with the Circle rather than join them. “A clever healer is always good to have around.”

“Greagoir would have my hide. But,” Irving breathes in, thinks of Solona and his little Oleander, the both of them so young and so bright and far too precious to remain trapped behind the Tower’s high walls, “a clever healer is what I need to speak to you about.”

“The girl? Solona, right?”

“Solona, yes. And the one who was with her, Neria. If you would have them,” Irving says. It’s hard to get this out, but, Andraste’s grace, he cannot continue to allow this. “They are not happy here, Duncan. And you know I cannot…  _ endorse _ the removal of my charges, particularly not two of the youngest Harrows in history, but—”

He breaks off. He doesn’t know how to explain to Duncan the way Solona’s stopped smiling. She had been such a happy child.

“But I am breaking that, now, because I must,” he continues. “I do not wish them trapped in this place until their dying days. It is no way to live.”

Duncan sighs. “A spirit healer is one thing, Irving. They are a blessing on the battlefield,” he thinks of that other girl, the small one with the eyes too wide, “but I cannot take a mage I know nothing about. Unless her magic proves to be of some use, then the healer is the only one I can take. You know that.”

“Solona will not go without Neria,” Irving says. “And Neria… she is special.”

“If she is not a healer, then she must prove invaluable on the field in some way,” Duncan says, watching the candle flicker, dancing and teasing. “Unless she can identify the source of the taint and how to defeat it, I am afraid my hands are tied. Weisshaupt does not like interactions with the Templar order.”

Irving snorts, actually snorts. “The girl Harrowed before she’d seen ten summers,” he says. The memory of little Neria, all of seven years old and eyes wide as dinner plates behind the closing Harrowing Chamber doors, haunts him still. She’d been so small. “And she has a form of the Sight that I have never encountered before.”

Harrowed before the age of ten? “The Templars agreed to put one so young through the Harrowing?” Duncan says, then thinks of what Irving said. “The Sight? Irving, how has she survived this long? The Chantry’s laws are clear on Seers.”

A _ Seer _ . Not a seer like the hedge mages one would find in Rivain, but an actual Seer, and one that has made it to adulthood. No wonder Irving is so desperate to get the girl out of the Tower. Duncan sighs, weariness deep in his blood. Weisshaupt is going to have his head. “What kind of Seer is she?”

“None that I have ever seen,” Irving sit back in his chair, forehead creasing. “It is not the Sight as we understand the Sight—she is no Seer, she does not see past or forwards or elsewhere. It is the only reason we’ve managed to keep her hidden this long. She sees… other things.”

“Define  _ other _ things.”

“What people are, down at their core. Magical auras,” says Irving, and here, his gaze goes melancholy and so old, older than the oldest spirit in the Beyond. He smiles, and it’s very grim. “Blood magic. She says it looks like bloody handprints all over a person.”

Duncan leans forward, just a little. A mage who can see blood magic? That would be helpful, invaluable, even. “You said she underwent the Harrowing as a child? Do you believe her Sight has something to do with the Fade?”

“That is what she sees. She sees the Fade, always.”

_ Oh _ , Duncan thinks _ , that would be useful _ . And also very, very dangerous. Seers and Templars—no, that’s not a combination that needs to be left as it is. The Chantry has always been  _ very _ clear on what is to be done with Seers, has been after the last one to reach majority tried to rewrite the Chant. “You should have contacted me sooner. If she is like other Seers, her power will not stay hidden for much longer.”

“I had to wait until Solona was Harrowed,” Irving tells him. He regards his old friend for a moment; it has been a long time since Irving himself was invited to join the Wardens, and there are days he still regrets not taking Duncan up on the offer.

But the apprentices needed him. They are all children, and they are all so young. There would have been other First Enchanters, he knows, who may have done a much better job of keeping the Templars from harming the mages. But they are all long dead, and Irving is what is left.

“Then these two are a set?” he asks, trying not to notice the way Irving looks far older than him, despite not being much older at all. Life in the Circle can do that to a person, and Duncan thinks of all the mages he has known. So many left so broken, so young. “Life in the Wardens will not be easy for them. I cannot guarantee that they will be able to stay together.”

“I would like to see anyone aim to separate them,” Irving says, kind. His mouth curls, a little. “I would pray for their souls, as well. Neria will not be parted from Solona; they have been together than longer than either of them can remember. It would be a cruelty, to even try.”

“Greagoir will not object?” Duncan does not know the Knight-Commander as well as he ought to. Hard to do, really, when the Knight-Commander is a former Templar Hunter who tried more than once to take a mage that was off-limits. Then he remembers, slowly, in fractures, the stories that filtered through the countryside. There’d been the talk in Highever, two decades past, of a Fereldan Hunter taking a Hightown child, of tears and heartbreak and a storm in the streets as one of the oldest Kirkwall families fell. 

Oh, of  _ course _ . He should have seen it earlier. The raven black hair, feather light and the blue eyes so bright, so impossibly blue in a way not even the sky can manage. “Her name is Solona  _ Amell _ , is it not?”

“Why yes,” Irving nearly laughs. Ah, Duncan, he never fails to catch on. “It is.”

“And the elf, Neria,” he asks, “she is the babe found at Surana Vale?”

“ _ Found _ is putting it mildly, but yes,” and Irving has his own suspicions about that. He cannot help but wonder if there is not still a Dalish Keeper somewhere in the hills, mourning a lost First. It would not be the first time.

“Then I take it Greagoir is in support of these two leaving the tower, even if only behind closed doors?” he can already see the coming arguments. Greagoir and Irving will fight, but it will be the kind of fighting done only for show. The trickiest part of this will be getting the elf to Ostagar and Joined before anyone can notice what she is. “You are not concerned with what exposure to the taint may do to her? No Seer has ever been a Warden.”

The Amells will be another problem entirely, he thinks. It is unlikely the survivors will turn down a chance at redemption, even through a mage, but there is still that branch of the family in Ferelden. The history with the Wardens there…is best not thought of, not now. 

“I do not think he will object,” the First Enchanter says. No, Greagoir will not object: he still looks at Solona when she can’t catch him at it like he’s got a knife in his gut and the sight of her twists it deeper. They have talked about it so many times. Solona’s taking changed the Knight-Commander in his soul. He has never forgiven himself for it, Irving knows.

“Then if they will come, I will take them,” Duncan says, thankful, really, because this must be the  _ easiest  _ recruitment he has ever made. “But that can be saved for later, can it not? Lyna still needs healing.”

“Your Dalish recruit, yes,” Irving’s face creases, the folds of skin around his eyes like mountain crags, ancient and inscrutable. “The healers will need time to prepare. Slowing the spread of the taint… it is a worthy goal.”

There is no guarantee, of course, that it will work. Even here, in the Circle Tower, there is very little information on what the darkspawn are or where they come from. The Chant of Light is as good a starting place as any; Irving will have to see if Greagoir has any of the old religious tomes hidden away in his office because if the answers exist, that is where they will be.

(And Irving very carefully does not think of the grimoire tucked away in his chest, with its black leather binding and its golden tree. The answers may be there, as well, but the tome is one as dark as anything Irving has ever seen. Blood magic, and no mistake. But perhaps, in this instance, it will be forgivable—darkspawn taint lives in the blood; to remove it one must go  _ into _ the blood, but it’s never been done to Irving’s knowledge. Blood magic, bah. It is such a thin line, and one so easily smudged.)

“Tomorrow, then?” Duncan offers, standing up, feeling the weariness of hard travel creeping along his veins. And Irving—Irving looks so very tired, and so very, very distracted. “Get some rest, old friend.”

Irving shakes his head as he rises to walk Duncan to the door. Rest? If only. The thought of his chambers was but a fleeting one—Irving knows he must go talk to Greagoir. There are things to discuss, as there always are, but still the most pressing issue is Neria’s warning. If there is a blood mage in the apprentice quarters, all of Irving’s children are in danger, and that cannot stand. “The day is old but the night is young, Warden-Commander,” he says, “and you of all people should not be surprised.”

“The night is  _ for _ the young, First Enchanter,” Duncan replies, smiling just a little, “and no one can call either one of us that.”

“No,” Irving agrees, remembers a race through a cavern, cold and dank, with this man on his left. The years have not been kind to either of them. “Young we are not. It is  _ such _ a waste.”

 

—

 

They are so  _ loud _ . Lyna remembers the clan, sharp and painful, none of this stone is natural how can anyone live here—no, stop. Breathe. The air is nasty, tangy with magic and completely lacking in the cool comfort trees and grass and dirt and fresh water… 

_ Breathe _ . 

She walks a step behind the other three, close to the wall. There’s a bit of blurriness around the corners of her vision, creepy dark, really quite annoying. Her bow is nowhere on her person; another annoyance, but then there’s this cooling feeling washing over her, blue light calm and gentle as starlight. The darkness recedes a little.

Creators, was all that noise really just in her head?

“I’m sorry,” Solona says. The Dalish girl, Lyna, she was shaking like a leaf and her pupils had been so wide. “I know I should have asked, but—but you looked like it hurt. Does that help?”

“Yes,” she says, throat thick with everything, sticky-sick memories clogging up her airways. “Thank you. Still feels like a sylvan jumped on me, but it’s better.”

“You’ve seen real sylvans?” Solona asks, stymied for a moment, enough that the cleansing magic slips through her fingers. Sylvans, real sylvans, plants possessed by demons to move—Maker, what a thought. “Are they really as violent as the stories say they are? Oh, hold on, magic.”

Lyna shrugs, ignores the magic, runs a hand along the cold stone. “Most are. We have to clear a path through the forest before the clan moves through. One can take out several aravels if not stopped in time.”

(Magic here is strange; layered, but not dangerous. Not quite, at least. She can’t really identify it, doesn’t care to. Keeper Marethari had tried to train her to use her sensitivity, but—not now? Too tired. Far too tired.)

The elf slumps, and Solona manages to catch her just before she falls. She squeaks, “Um, Nerry, help?”

Neria frowns a little, eyes trained on the shadows writhing along the girl’s body, just below the skin. “They’ll eat her up if they’re not stopped,” she says, squints a little to see better. “Focus on the center, head and spine. They’re strongest there.”

“What do they look like? Handprints, or—”

Duncan’s other companion cuts in. “Andraste’s ass, can we get her into a bed before you start wiggling your fingers and glowing everywhere? She can’t even stand!”

“Which is why we need to heal her now.” Neria’s calm, strange. Still, interesting new thing. She kneels down beside the Dalish girl, eyes a little unfocused to see the shadows better. “This is dark, but not magic, not really. It’s from the other side, maybe?”

“ _ Nerry _ ,” Solona says, sharply. The other side… no, absolutely not, not right now. They don’t have the time. “Nerry, don’t go towards it. Just tell me where to put my hands.”

“Base of the skull should do it,” she says, blinks herself back to the mortal world. “At least to start. They’re choking her.”

“Heat or cold?”

“Neither. Light.”

“Heat, then, and firelight.”

“No,  _ light _ ,” Neria insists, thinks of Templar magic, of cleansing mana, of early morning sunlight washing away the last of the night, “but if fire is all you’ve got, it’ll have to do. Just quickly!”

“Banishment? Would that work?” Solona’s voice is tight. Light, to banish the shadows. It’s not a complicated adaptation, and while normally she’d want to research it, there is no  _ time _ . She curls her hands around the back of the girl’s neck, sends a tiny prayer to Andraste or the Maker or  _ anyone _ who can hear, and pushes her magic into the skin.

Here’s what they don’t tell you, about magic: it’s all about belief. Belief in what you can do, belief in what you  _ want _ to do, and, most important, belief that if you want something badly enough, you can make it happen.

And Solona—Solona  _ believes _ .

She doesn’t know how much mana she pours into the girl, and she doesn’t know how much time goes by. Healing makes her ignorant to the rest of the world; her own needs take a back seat to the patient she’s working on. It happens now, too. Solona banishes and burns and ices the shadows away, her awareness limited to Nerry’s voicing quiet instructions in her ear and to Lyna’s body underneath her hands. Everything is cool and blue and exhausting, heart and lungs and ventricles, blood pounding and death hovering so, so close.

Solona pushes it away, again and again and again.  _ No _ , she tells the shadows that Nerry says are there,  _ no, you will  _ not _ take her. You will not have her, Andraste help me, you will not! _

She is so tired, and she surfaces slow.

“ _ Ow _ ,” Solona says, for the second time that day. “Can I not do that again?”

“You did good, swan,” Neria answers, tiny hands on her face. “You did good.”

The shadows—chains, she thinks, can’t find a better word for it—have receded enough the girl should be fine for now. The magic will need to be repeated, held more permanent. A ward, perhaps? No, that will require a mage to always be there, sustaining it with their own mana. There must be  _ something _ , somewhere, hidden, the books in Uncle Irving’s office, in Uncle Greagoir’s—

“Is she going to be alright?” Kally asks. Her voice is almost not there at all.

“Not without something better,” Neria says, titles of books she’ll need already filling her head. Perhaps Auntie Wynne can help, too. A senior healer, yes, and someone from the entropy school, “but for now, she is.”

Kally exhales, very long and very slow. “Thank you,” she says, even though the words are hard. Lyna  _ does _ look better, and for all that Kally is still—there’s still anger, and bitterness, and sharp tangy  _ resent _ on her tongue— _ upset _ , with the old man and the girl both, they’re all she has, now. “Thank you for not letting her die.”

“Thank us later,” Neria says, waving off the elf. “We’ll find a way to stop this once and for all.”

“It’s the taint,” Kally says, reaches down to scoop Lyna up. She  _ feels _ strange, like all her bones have become hollow, like there’s nothing left inside of her. “Either you join the Wardens, or you die. There isn’t a third option. If there was, we’d know about it.”

And she doesn’t know why she’s saying  _ we _ . She’s not a Warden just yet.

(But it feels right, Andraste take them all. Kally does not remember signing up for this.)

“You don’t know us,” Neria says, simple, and leaves it at that.

_ Well _ , Kally thinks,  _ she’s not wrong _ . She doesn’t know them, doesn’t know anything about magic, really, except that the Chantry was a bit mad about it, and the Templars even more so. But she knows a fair bit about dying, and more than that besides. It’s been hours, and when they got here it was the middle of the day—if the sun’s still up, she’ll be surprised.

But at least Lyna’s breathing’s even up, a little, and the weird inky cast to her features is gone.

“Can I get her to a bed, now?” Kally asks. “ _ Please _ ?”

Lyna yawns, eyes flutter and  _ Mythal _ everything hurts. “Bug, shut up,” she murmurs, then it registers that the fabric against her skin is nothing hummingbird-bug would  _ ever _ wear and, oh, right. She’s not in the forest anymore, not a Sabrae anymore, not  _ anything _ anymore. “Kallian?”

“I’ve got your bow. If you hit me with again, I will  _ break _ it the next time I get my hands on it,” Kally says, and doesn’t bother to hide the relief in her voice. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she says. “What happened?”

“You—fell,” Kally says, doesn’t know how to explain it more than that. “What do you remember?”

“We’re at the Circle, right?” Everything’s a bit foggy, but of that she’s fairly certain. There’s magic in the air here, a lot of it, and the stone bleeds secrets never meant to be shared. “You’re a healer?” she says to the girl slumped on the floor in front of her.

“Something like that,” she says, winces when her knees protest. Drat it all, that’s the second time today! At this rate, she’s going to lose the use of the limbs. “Couldn’t have done it without Nerry.”

“Probably not,” Neria says, standing and stretching her back. “We should go to the library. Well, her to bed first, but then library.”

“I want to sleep for a week,” Solona croaks.

“You can sleep in the library.”

“No,” the croak becomes a moan, “th’ last time I slept’n th’ libr’ry my neck  _ hur’ _ ... too m’ny books…”

Neria pouts. “Fine. Let’s get you to bed and I’ll just go get the books and bring them back,” she says, hands on her hips and all too focused on this world for her liking. Nothing for it, though. There’s work to be done. Interesting work, at that.  _ Very  _ interesting. “You, Kallian? You can help me carry them.”

“ _ Kally _ ,” Kally says, “it’s  _ Kally _ .”

But that doesn’t stop her from shuffling Lyna to her left arm and tucking her securely against her hip, before reaching down to help the mage on the floor up. Solona? Andraste’s tits, that’s a mouthful, they’ll have to find her a nickname or sommat, Kally can barely remember her  _ own _ name on a good day.

“Kally, then.” Neria moves to tuck herself under Sonny’s other arm. “Follow me.”

The mage’s quarters are easier to navigate than the apprentice quarters, and her room is much closer than the guest rooms. Might as well. The Dalish girl is quite woozy from the look of it. It would best if neither she nor Solona tried to move to far. 

(And the research. That too, of course. It’ll be so much easier if she can see the chains, examine the way they writhe and follow the connection as best she can. This is Important, she knows, deep in the echoing shadows of her spirit. This is Very Important work indeed.)

It takes more dexterity than Kally knew she had, to get Lyna and the mage bedded down. She’s almost kind of proud of herself. There’s only one bed, and something about it sends a vaguely ominous thrill down her spine, but who cares, they’ll deal with it in the morning. As long as Lyna doesn’t have access to her bow, probably someone will only get hit in the face.

“There,” she murmurs, more to herself than to the elf mage. Neria, she’d said, and the names come back now that Kally’s not lost in tight panicky worry at the base of her throat. The elf mage is Neria, the human Solona, and without them, Lyna would be dead.

Neria tucks the last corner of the blanket in place. “Right. Library now. This way, Kally!” she chirps, marching off without a look behind her to make sure the elf is following. 

“I—” Kally blinks.  _ Me? I can barely read! _ But Neria hasn’t looked back, and she’s since she’s clearly unconcerned about Lyna and Solona, Kally figures they can’t be  _ entirely _ badly off. And it’s not like she’s got anywhere to go, because the old man is probably still talking to the Head Enchanter or whatever he’s called, and Kally has absolutely  _ zero _ desire to waste her brain cells trying to communicate with Templars.

So she follows the flash of white hair—and it is white, truly white, white as seafoam, white as snow—and finds herself in a circular room full of more books than Kally has ever even dreamed of. Her jaw  _ drops _ .

Creation? Entropy? Oh, which section should she check first? Obviously those two—yes, those two and history. Creation is closest, the spines staring out.  _ Spirit Healers Through the Ages _ in particular. She doesn’t need it, but the pictures in the back are  _ so cute _ . She’s never been able to find Ser Pouce-A-Lot the Tiger’s creator to tell them how adorable the pictures are. 

Oh well. 

Moving on.

She’ll need treatises on healing magics, on mana cleansing, on the history of Fade research on—

“Is something wrong?” she stops, books stacked tall in her arms, when she catches sight of the blonde elf staring in silent wonder at the library. “If you like this, you should see the Templar library. Much more expansive. Better books too.”

“I’ve never seen so many books in my  _ life _ ,” Kally manages. Oh, Soris would  _ weep _ if he could see this. There’s got to be at least  _ one _ book they won’t miss, something he’ll like, too, and there’s so many that she doesn’t even know where to begin.

“That is depressing,” Neria says, absently pursuing the entropy section. “Life without books is like life without sunshine.”

“Sounds like you’d know more about that than you’d think,” Kally says quietly. There are no  _ windows _ in this place, it’s all stone and pasty skin and weird glowing orbs on the walls instead of candles like  _ normal _ people. “When was the last time you went outside?”

“About two years,” she says, airily, and adds another book to the pile in her arms. “Uncle Greagoir was yelling about that Anderfel boy for  _ weeks _ after, and they stopped the weekly exercises outside. Uncle Irving says this has happened before, so the exercises will probably start again—or, no, maybe not.” She looks up at the ceiling, head filled with every complaint the Knight-Commander has ever had about that boy. “I think not. Not while he’s still here. Though he’s not, right now. Escaped again last week. They’ll catch him soon enough.”

“Two  _ years _ ?!” Kally repeats. “You haven’t been seen the sun in  _ two years _ ?! Andraste, it’s no  _ wonder _ your hair’s white, all the colour’s drained out of you!”

Neria blinks, owlish and quite confused. “My hair has always been white? At least, that’s what they tell me. I was brought here as a baby, and it was white even then. It’s how I got my name.”

“No, I—” Kally starts to explain, and then stops. The mage is looking at her, eyes wide open, and there’s something a little bit eerie about it. Kally decides that maybe it’s best not to try to explain at all. “Never mind, it was a joke.”

“Oh. No one ever makes jokes with me,” and her voice is faint. Strange creature, this elf. Neria brushes it off her thoughts, waves it away. There’s no use for that right now. She shifts the books in her arms and asks, “Can you help me with these?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Kally says, and takes them from her. Maker, they’re  _ heavy _ . And all filled with words?  _ All _ of them?

And then, of course, she realizes just what the other girl has said.

“Hold on,” Kally says, “what do you mean, no one makes jokes with you?”

“Most people avoid me,” she replies, bending at the waist to look at the bottom shelf. “Solona isn’t the joking type, not really. And Uncle Greagoir and Uncle Irving prefer to joke with each other. They’re usually quite honest with me.”

“But—” Kally struggles. The books are one thing, but  _ friends _ ? Even in the alienage, where they were too poor to rub two bits together, Kally always had  _ friends _ . “—but you must have other friends, don’t you? You’re in a Tower full of people, and they’re all like you! And they’re not—not hungry, so they won’t steal your lunch, and they’re not  _ poor _ , so they won’t steal your things… Really, no one at all?”

“They’d just steal my kisses. Everyone does that around here. It’s rather disturbing,” and she removes a book on elven history, one of ancient magics and tools. Hmm, she’ll need the translation book from the other side of the library for this one, if only to keep up apperances. “And no one is like me, but Solona keeps me grounded, and the other two protect me. I don’t think I need anyone else.”

“What do kisses have to do with anything?” Kally wants to know. Nerry puts another thick book on the pile, and doesn’t bother to answer that.

It was a stupid question, so Kally doesn’t blame her.

_ Still _ .

“I’ve never been entirely sure, but it happens a lot here.” She sighs, looking around the library. So much to be researched, and so few resources. “There’s so much that could be done if they weren’t, and worse is when they do it here. Libraries are not for that kind of silliness.”

_ Honestly _ . It’s the absolute worst when she just wants a quiet place to research or explore the other side and there’s people kissing. Annoying, very annoying. The library at night is so nice for this reason; there’s rarely anyone here beyond the Templars.

“Should we get started?” she asks, then reconsiders. Templars—no, this won’t do at all. “Back to the room, I think. Then we’ll start.”

Kally glances around, and has to agree. There are three Templars in the library, and they are all staring, their eyes bright slits behind their helms. Maker, that’s frightening. No sun and  _ that _ , all the time? It’s no wonder mages go crazy, they’re never let alone.

“Yeah, let’s go. But I won’t be much help,” Kally says, “just so you know.”

“Why not?” she asks, not really listening. The Templars glare at them as they pass by, but Neria holds her head high and continues back towards her room. Idiots, the lot. They don’t even know who they’re protecting or from what.

“Oh,” Kally says, she would want an explanation, wouldn’t she, “I can’t read. Well, actually, no, I can, just—not well.”

Neria stops in the middle of the hall, turns and stares at the elf. A life without books? Without reading, writing? How does she get anything done? That sounds like a terribly boring existence, not being able to read. There’s simply no way to keep anything straight without writing it down and reading it for reminders. And then the books. There are so many books in the Tower, but a great many more outside of it. How could anyone live amongst such wonderful texts and not be able to _read_ _them_?

“Oh you poor thing,” she says, and means it completely. “We’ll have to fix that.”

“I don’t think we’ll have the time,” Kally says. “‘Sides, I don’t really care, I’ve no practical use for it. We don’t have books where I come from, just notices to tell us not to do things, and I ignore those, anyway.”

“But you’re a Warden now,” Neria takes a few of the books off the top of the stack. “You’ll have to read things to know where you are and where you’re going.”

“Not a Warden yet,” Kally tells her, and tosses her hair. “I can remain ignorant and blissful, for now.”

Neria shakes her head. “No, you can’t. You’re to go to Ostagar and you’ll need to be able to read battle plans. Lives depend on that.” She looks down at the books she’s holding. “I’ll just have to teach you what I can as quickly as I can. It’s not that hard if you already know the basics.”

“I do know—some?” Kally says it like a question. “My—my brother, he taught me as best as he could, but it wasn’t any good, I don’t think, I don’t know where  _ he _ picked it up. But I—” her throat closes up. “—I’d like to learn.”

“Then I’ll teach you,” Neria says, prim and proper. “Now let’s go, we’re losing the night.”


	9. i shone the sun into your eyes

This is strange, a little. Elissa had never really thought about marriage much, and certainly not life after marriage. But here she is, sitting in the Queen’s Wing with Cailan standing behind her, hand on the back of the settee she’s on while this patchwork group of hers is gathered all around.

So very strange. She remembers her mother and father like this, with her and Fergus and everyone else standing about. She just never really expected to be the one in the middle, the one everyone is focused on. This was supposed to be Oriana’s deal, not hers.

Dane at her feet is a comfort, at least. When all else feels odd, he will always be the constant, the solid ground that keeps her world upright.Her hand finds the fur atop his head, fingers scratching beneath his ear. She turns a little, and quietly says to Cailan, “Feel free to tell them,” because she doesn’t think she can. Not yet, at least. She’s not her mother, not Oriana, not a lady of the house, and this is all just not right.

“Oh, thanks,” Cailan murmurs in reply, lips barely moving, but there’s humour in his voice. “Leave me to the vultures, Elissa, I might as well give up now.”

When she only narrows her eyes at him in reply, Cailan has to fight not laugh. She would, too. He straightens up, and looks around at all the people gathered there. It’s a larger number than he expected; Ser Gilmore and Soris and Iona, certainly, but also Chamberlain and Iona’s daughter and Dane, who deserves a mention all on his own.

“We’re going to the summer palace,” Cailan says in a rush, because it’s best to get this out all at once, “and none of you are coming with us. No, you don’t get to argue, you don’t get a say, we’re doing it, it’s happening, you’re going to have to deal with it.”

Elissa pinches the bridge of her nose. Andraste in a sea squall, what was I thinking? Taking a deep breath, she corrects him. “Dane and Soris will be coming,” she says. “Iona will be securing a new maid to accompany us as well while she stays behind with Amethyne and Chamberlain. Ser Gilmore will taking over the City Guard effective immediately and will stay to sort out that mess,” she looks up at Cailan. “Right?”

He nods, a grin trying to break it’s way across his face. One day, she’s going to learn that she can’t leave announcements up to him, because he will invariably ruin it and insult everyone in the vicinity without even trying. “Right,” he says.

“Your Majesties,” comes Chamberlain’s old croaky voice, “is this really the time for a vacation.”

Elissa winces. Someday, someday, she will learn how to handle Chamberlain. But today is not that day, so she points to Cailan and Iona and says, “This was their idea,” and tries to ignore the way Gil looks like he’s about to start laughing.

Chamberlain turns to look at Iona, scandalized. He’d thought he’d had an ally in her! He’d thought they could work together to combat the twin evils of bad fashion and castle dirt! He’d trusted her! She is a turncoat!

Iona is, predictably, not fussed. Her face is quite expressionless. “Lord Chamberlain, are you surprised? Their Majesties have not had a chance to court, as is proper. If they do not have the chance to do so, they may never know each other, and Ferelden may never have an heir. That was the point of this endeavor, was it not?”

Chamberlain stares at her, aghast. She knows—she knows, how could she not, she is Lady Elissa’s chambermaid—what their Majesties have been up to! She knows! As, he realizes abruptly, so does everyone else in the room. Lady Elissa is bright red, all the way down to the roots of her hair, Lord Cailan’s covered his face, and Ser Gilmore looks caught between choking on his laughter and horrified screaming. Even little Amethyne!

The nerve. Chamberlain would be insulted if the whole situation wasn’t so absurd.

“Um,” Soris starts, and heat starts to rise towards the tips of his ears because he’s fairly certain this is something important and he hasn’t the foggiest what they’re talking about, “am I missing something?”

“No, Soris,” Iona smiles at him. “Not at all. Chamberlain is being silly, aren’t you, Chamberlain?”

Chamberlain huffs, and decides to approach the topic later, when certain parties aren’t about to waylay all his plans. It is impossible to keep an eye on the summer palace, it’s too far out, what in the Maker’s name will he do if something happens to their Majesties while he’s not there? Who will draw their baths? He eyes Iona again. Oh yes, he thinks when she smiles blandly at him, you are the enemy, little miss, don’t think I don’t see it. I am watching you, child.

Dane huffs. Everything was so peaceful, stupid humans. Mistress was scratching that nice spot behind his ear, and all was good. He whines low at the back of his throat, wanting the peace back. They can argue later, when she isn’t paying attention to him. She already settled the important bit, after all. She’s going away and he’s going with her. That’s all that matters.

Now, ear-scratching, please?

Iona sighs. These people, they’re all hopeless, really. “So it’s settled, then. Their Majesties will leave for the summer palace before the week’s end. Chamberlain, you’ll need to begin packing, please.”

“You will help, little miss, and no complaints,” he croaks. “I cannot manage on my own.”

“Of course I will, Chamberlain, but first—” she pauses to smile at the royal couple, “—Lady Elissa, Lord Cailan, these are servant matters, you needn’t stay to listen. Ser Gilmore, may I borrow Soris for a little while?”

Soris hears his name and—wait, what? “Borrow me?”

“Take him, Iona,” Gilmore says, arms crossed over his chest. “See if you can’t get him to be more observant of his surroundings while you’re at it.”

What in—Maker what did he miss this time? Soris stammers, “Borrow me for what? Ser Gilmore? Iona?”

Iona pretends not to see Lady Elissa and Lord Cailan quietly inching backwards. Andraste, they are both very predictable and very unsubtle. If they’re not ensconced in his study and attached at the lips by the time she’s finished her conversation with Soris, she will be very surprised.

“I need some… advice,” she says, absently tucking her hair behind her ear. “I don’t know the alienage well enough anymore to make an educated decision, but—would you like to come for a walk?”

He doesn’t mean it, really, but an image of Kallian asking him the exactly same question before dragging him into some mess of Red Jenny’s rises up from the depths of his memory. Someday, he will learn to stop associating with crazy elven women.

At least, the ones not related to him.

“Of course,” he says, and offers her his arm.

Iona smiles at him brightly, and curls her hand around his elbow. He’s very warm. On the way out, she catches Ser Gilmore’s eye.

She can’t help herself. Over her shoulder, she throws him a wink.

He probably doesn’t see it, but that’s alright. What matters, after all, is that it was there.

 

—

 

They are so stealthy, Cailan tells himself. The stealthiest.

(They are not stealthy. They are not even close to stealthy.)

He and Elissa sneak out of the Queen’s Wing. He’s thinking about steering her into his bedroom and wrapping her hair around his wrists because that’s an interesting phenomenon that he’s found he likes.

“Have you actually been in my bedroom?” he asks, because it’s just occurred to him that he doesn’t think she has.

“No,” she says, “and if it’s anywhere near the library, I am going to blame you for the bruises for all eternity. Why do you ask?”

“Really? Why do I ask?” he says. He’s looking down at her, eyebrows raised and the stupidest grin he has in his arsenal on his mouth. “Really?”

“Honestly,” she says, pushing his shoulder and moving him absolutely nowhere. Stupid men and their larger frames. “Do you think of nothing else?”

“Sometimes I think about food,” he says, honestly.

“You’re the King of Ferelden,” Elissa stands up on her toes, tries to match him in height and coming nowhere close. One slender finger presses into his chest, just right of his heart. “You have to think about the state of the country, and the military, and the economy, and law enforcement, and lots of things. That’s what being a king is.”

Cailan’s eyebrows rise higher, hands curling around the curve of her back and pulling her close. “Oh, only that? The economy and the military and everything else? When am I supposed to have time to find a Queen, then?”

“You’ve found two so far,” she says, drops down to her heels and starts to saunter off towards his study. “I think you’ve got that covered.”

Oh. That.

Cailan catches her wrist, and reels her back. “I—wanted to wait, to talk about that.”

“Talk about what?” Elissa asks, scowling down at his hand on her wrist. What is she, a fish to be dragged in? No one pulls her in like that. It’s undignified.

“Anora,” he says, suddenly quiet. “And choices.”

Well—that’s…there goes any fight she had, the name sinking in like poison. Anora. Of course. Of course she would come up. She always comes up because Anora Mac Tir is bloody perfect in every way—

—and Elissa is maybe still a little bitter over comments made years ago when Cailan’s first engagement was announced and the news reached Highever.

“What about her?” and her voice is clipped, sharp and a tad more vicious than intended but, well, she can’t be blamed.

Cailan looks at her and realizes: oh, she’s hurt.

But that hadn’t been the point of bringing Anora up at all. He’d brought Anora up because Anora had been a choice, the only choice he’d ever really thought he’d have to make. But no, Elissa doesn’t understand that, because he’s not told her, and how can he expect her to understand something he hasn’t explained?

But she won’t listen, not right now, so Cailan…

Well, Cailan makes a decision.

She’s small, is Elissa, and slight for all the muscle packed tightly on her bones. It takes hardly anything at all to swing her up and deposit her over his shoulder, and if he hurries, she’ll be too stunned that he’s done anything to jab her knee into his stomach. He’s not counting on much time, and he has to get down a flight of stairs.

“Trust me,” he tells her.

She props her chin up on her hands, elbows digging into his shoulder a little harder than necessary. “I don’t fancy being executed for regicide, so talk quickly and for the love of all that is holy, put me down!”

What is it with taller men picking her up and carrying her wherever? Fergus was always tossing her into her room when she was too much trouble, or something she wasn’t to know about was going on. And Gil—well, best not to think of that, and she rarely objected to the times when he would pick her up and carry her.

But still. Just because she’s small doesn’t mean anyone can just cart her off like it’s no big deal! She is still a Cousland, still the—still the Queen of Ferelden. Right. Which makes this worse, actually, because before she was just the younger child of a Teyrn.

Well, there goes her will to fight. Farewell, old friend, we hardly knew ye.

Any other day, Cailan would take the stairs two at a time. In deference to his Queen up over his shoulder, he takes them slower, the way stairs are meant to be taken, not that he’d ever had much practise at that. His bedroom isn’t far, now, just ‘round the corner, and he doesn’t care if the servants know, Maker, he doesn’t care.

“Just trust me,” he says again. “Please.”

“Don’t have much choice right now, do I?” she sighs. “Just don’t drop me, you arse.”

“As if I would ever,” Cailan says, offended. Two minutes later, he sets her down on his bed. “There. Now just, listen, I wasn’t trying to—I wasn’t trying to compare. I was trying to—there were—Eamon didn’t—”

She’s sitting there with her arms crossed, face scrunched into a furious glare, and Cailan still can’t find the words. He flops down next to her, stretches out but leaves her space to crawl down next to him if she wants. “C’mere, Elissa, please.”

She huffs and stands up, crossing the room towards the bookcases. Interesting selection, much better than what’s in the library. Not much fiction, though, quite boring. She picks out a book on human-elven politics and starts to read.

“Elissa,” Cailan groans, “please.”

“Why isn’t there a school in the alienage here?” she asks, resolutely ignoring his request. “That’s silly. You’re wasting hundreds of potential craftsmen who could increase trade and help the city progress. They need a school. And a library.”

“And they’ll have them, but will you please listen to me?”

“You haven’t said anything yet.”

“I didn’t pick you!”

Oh. Well then. “That’s a pity. What lies were you told to get you to agree?”

Cailan snorts. “Told? I wasn’t told anything.”

Wasn’t told anything? Elissa slowly closes the book, the words starting to become blurry. He wasn’t told anything? “Did you even know it was going to be me before I arrived?”

“I did,” he says, and there’s bitter ash on his tongue. “By about three days.”

Elissa breathes in through her nose, counting down from five in her head. “You’re telling me that Arl Eamon looked my father in the eye and proceeded to lie through his teeth?”

“I don’t know, what did he tell your father?”

“That this was your idea,” she says, putting the book back on the shelf. “That I was your choice. That this had been in discussion in Denerim for months.”

“Then yes,” Cailan says, “that is exactly what I’m telling you. I brought up Anora because—because she was my best friend, Elissa. She was my older sister, and I married her because my father had just disappeared and I had no idea how to run a country and I was scared.”

“That’s a shitty reason to marry someone.” She scowls, doesn’t mean to, really, but Andraste, did he actually just compare his first wife to his sister? That should have been the first sign that the marriage was a bad idea. Who on earth marries the person they think of as a sibling?

“Yeah,” he says, “I know. But if I’d married anyone else, they would have made her leave, and I’d never lived without her. I didn’t know how.”

Breathe, Elissa, she has to remind herself. That is, by far, the whiniest excuse for a bad decision she has ever heard. And she knows Sebastian Vael. That just…really? No wonder so much of the Bannorn was in favor of placing Father on the throne instead; their alternative was a bloody child in a grown man’s body. “That is stellar decision making there. Andraste in a sea squall, are you kidding me?”

“No,” he says, and he’s laughing a little helplessly, because for certain in the years since he’s had this conversation with himself more than once. “I was an idiot, I know that. Still am, far as most people are concerned.”

“Well, you’re not exactly giving people much to counter that opinion.” The scowl lessens and she can’t quite keep the anger up in the face of him looking so miserable. Lost, really, like the whole world’s gone out from under him and she remembers all too well what that feeling is. “Give yourself a little credit. You’re terrible with people, but you’re not always an idiot.”

“Thanks,” he says, “I think. Will you come lay down, now? I just want to explain.”

She doesn’t lay down, won’t, yet, but she does find a place to sit towards the head of the bed. “Then talk.”

“It was Eamon’s idea,” Cailan says. He folds his arms behind his head and stares at the canopy, remembering. “Anora’s twenty-eighth birthday, I think, was when it started. It was just a passing comment, can’t even remember who, now, but it was…”

There isn’t really a word for that level of Orlesian snide.

“It was unkind,” he decides on. “Something about her being barren, or something ridiculous. And this all might have been avoided, but Eamon heard it.”

And Eamon ran with it.

Eamon ran with it all the way to the Korcari Wilds, over the hills and gone.

“His letters got… odd. I didn’t think anything of it at first. But then he was talking about age and children, and how Anora hadn’t yet conceived, and he said—he said if she hadn’t yet, then she likely wouldn’t.”

It had been an ugly conversation. Elissa doesn’t need to know that.

“And he was right, but not for the reasons he thought. When I said she was like my older sister—” he breaks out to bark out a jagged little laugh, “—I meant it. It was all wrong, felt wrong, neither of us—”

Cailan pauses, to breathe. To breathe.

“We weren’t suited, Anora and I,” he murmurs. “But she was still my best friend, and a better ruler than me by far. It… made sense, at the time, and I never really thought about it because I didn’t have to. But Eamon… Eamon wouldn’t let it alone.”

And he doesn’t talk about the weeks of cold silence between them, the exhaustion smeared beneath Anora’s eyes, the quietly nervous way Teagan would look between them at court functions. Those things aren’t relevant, not really, and he’ll tell her about them one day, but not now. Not now, because now she needs to understand.

“It was her idea,” he says. “I don’t know how Eamon convinced her; I may never know. But last midwinter, she sat me down and told me that I needed to find a new queen, because she didn’t want to do it anymore. And we fought.”

Cailan had listened to his parents fight all the time, growing up. Listening to them had scarred him deep in the depths of his soul, in ways he still doesn’t always understand. But he’d never realized that being in the middle of one of those fights was far worse than simply hearing one.

“She was gone the next morning,” Cailan says. “And I wrote to Eamon and told him fine, I didn’t care anymore, he wanted a new queen he could pick one himself. I wanted nothing to do with it.”

He chuckles, soft and low and unconscionably bitter. “I was a rude little shit about it, too. I’m surprised he even wrote me back. But the point was—the point was I lost my choice, and I’m still angry about it but it doesn’t matter, because what really hurts is that because I was prick, you lost your choice, too. And you shouldn’t have. And I’m sorry.”

Cailan swallows hard. “I’m really, really sorry.”

She leans her head back against the headboard, stares at the canopy as the air leaves her lungs in a whoosh. Well, that hadn’t been what she was expecting. “I had never fought with my father before, not until that,” she speaks carefully around the memories, still sharp and ready to cut because that is one of her last memories of her father and that, she thinks, is a primary motivator for wanting to burn Amaranthine to the ground and extinguish the Howe line once and for all.

But she won’t say that. That’s a dark, awful thing. He doesn’t need that right now, doesn’t need it ever, really. Those details are best kept to her and Dane and Gil, the only ones still standing who were there, who remember every horrible thing she said.

“Logically, I knew it was going to happen at some point,” Elissa thinks of the first time her mother took her aboard the Mistral, misses the salt wind her hair with a fierce knife of longing behind her ribs. “He’d tried to give me a choice. He and Mother both, really. I was introduced to so many noblemen in hopes I’d pick one, but—”

There was always Gil, she thinks. Always Gil, yes, and no one was ever going to be as important, will ever be as important because, well, he’s her best friend. They just never had the sibling aspect, not really. That had been avoided with a bouquet of seashells.

None of that matters, now. All of it is bitter, rosy broken bits of memories that will never be shared. Then she looks at Cailan a long while and thinks maybe. It had been the foolish love of childhood, after all, innocent and sweet and never meant to last. There wasn’t a sibling aspect to it, but maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t so different from him and Anora.

That, though, is a conversation for another time.

“—but it just never worked,” she says, settling for the diplomatic. “It was inevitable, really, that someone I couldn’t refuse would come along.”

She shrugs, draws her knees up to her chest. “And then Eamon came along. Funny thing is, I had been joking about running away just that morning. For a long time, I thought that was what I wanted. Then Howe happened and I thought about Kirkwall and all the connections in the Marches I have; I could have retaken Highever by sea easily.”

“You still could have,” Cailan says, softly, thinks about it, all of it, about holding out his hand on that stupid dais, and the trepidation in her face when she’d linked their fingers. “I would have understood. Did understand, I think.”

“You shouldn’t have made it seem like I had a choice, then.” she mumbles.

“You did have a choice, though?” he says, turns his head to blink at her. “I mean, that was the point, I’d taken away your choice in the first place and I just… wanted to give it back.”

She frowns. “You don’t really think that, do you? That I could have just left the King of Ferelden at the altar and run off to raise an army and retake my city? Highever already has enough problems trying to trade with Ferelden, with trying to get alliances built with the families here. If I’d done that, we’d have to go back to being a Free City and close our borders again. Our reputation would never recover from that. Maker, most of the nobles here would have taken it as an invitation for war.”

“I wouldn’t have let them,” he says. “I just—wanted you to choose. As you. Not as, I don’t know, as a Cousland, or—or whatever. I just wanted… I don’t know.”

“But I am a Cousland,” she doesn’t know how to put it, not really. “Just as you’re a Theirin. We can’t change that. It might be different for you, but for me, Highever’s well-being is no different than the well-being of my family. The city is my family.”

“And that makes sense,” Cailan tells her, because he does understand that nearly-painful swell of affection, thinking about a place you love so much the thought of it hurting makes all of your organs clench, “but that’s still… You’re still Elissa. You’re still a person. And you should get to choose, is all. Everyone should get to choose.”

She snorts, undignified and Nan would be yelling at her, but Nan is gone and who cares? “If I’d had my choice, I would have taken the Mistral and terrorized the Waking Sea.”

“Somehow,” Cailan shakes his head against the pillows, “I can see it.”

“I might have chosen you, though, if I’d known you,” she admits. “You’re not so bad. Just—don’t ever do the marry-a-stranger thing again. It’s awful and should be banned.”

“I’m not planning on getting married again,” he says, casually, “so it’s not a problem.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes,” he says. “If you leave, I’m going to have to give up entirely. No hope.”

“If I leave,” she stretches out her legs, slowly unfurling her body, “this country will fall apart. Your knowledge of trade routes and managing alliances is terrible. And you still owe me Rendon Howe’s head on a pike.”

“That I do,” Cailan says. He’s cautious when he touches her, hands careful as he pulls her down and tucks her into the curve of his side.

He’s warm, even through his clothes, like he has the sun under his skin. If she places her head on his chest, she can hear his heart and it is a strange sensation. She’s done the same before, with other men and it was different. This is a heart she doesn’t know, a rhythm not as familiar as her own.

She still isn’t sure if this is good or not.

“And Cailan?” she asks, quiet, because this too is unfamiliar ground; it treads far too close to memories she’d rather not acknowledge.

“Yes, Elissa?”

“Never bring her up again, please.”

Cailan laughs into her hair. He shouldn’t be surprised, really he shouldn’t.

“I can do that,” he tells her. “I think.”

 

—

 

Maker in a nunnery what is this? Gil knows what the guard assignments looked like in Highever; helped work them out, in fact. This, though, this is a level of ridiculous he has never seen before.

“Really, boy, I think we’re in the weeds with this,” he says, absently, to Dane. The Mabari is sound asleep and does not stir.

Gil shuffles the papers around. If he’s reading this right, then the guards assigned to the market district—which should be the busiest district for the guard, what with the market and the alienage gates right there—seem to mostly be noble bastards who have received little or no training. At least, he can’t find any requisition requests for equipment or training space, which suggests there’s not been much at all. The docks are similarly unprotected, and there’s no guards at all stationed in the lonely district.

How has Denerim not torn itself apart?

He’s got three reports sorted out from the others already, suggesting at extensive organized crime. Some is to be expected in a city this size, but for so little to have been done about it…there is no logical way to explain Denerim’s relative stability. None whatsoever. 

So, looks like his to-do list is: total reassignment of guards, retraining every guard in the city, and reissuing every order they’ve received in the last six years.

Completely doable.

Gil’s head hits the desk with a goan.

“Ser Gilmore? Are you alright?”

He looks up to find Iona standing at the door, hands folded together and still wearing a cloak over her dress. “Denerim’s City Guard, has it ever been functional?”

“No, not really,” Iona says, as kindly as she can as she slides the cloak off her shoulders and drapes it over her arm. He looks quite put out at that, but it’s the truth: the guard has always been something of a joke. For all that Iona loves this city, she knows it is not a safe place—everyone knows it’s better to pay the hoodrat street gangs down in the slums for protection, because you’re much more likely to get it there than through the guard.

Poor Ser Gilmore. He’s no idea what he’s gotten himself into.

“Are there any good guardsmen that you know of?” He’s seen the reports, read them six times over. Only a very few make any sense. There are guards being praised for things that are not right. “I’m starting to think the bad reports are the guards I need to be trusting.”

“The ones with the worst patrols,” Iona says, smiling. “There’s a Sergeant in the market, called Kylon, he’s quite good. Not fond of mercenaries, but not afraid of them, either. He used to patrol the alienage, sometimes.”

Kylon, yes. That name’s popped up more than once in complaints from noblemen. He’ll have to check this out; by the time all is said and done, the guard is going to be needing a new captain. “Only sometimes? Why’d he stop?” he asks, looking through the reports on the alienage. There hasn’t been a proper patrol there in almost five years.

“I don’t know,” Iona says, frowning. She bends down to look at the scattered reports across the table. None of them are very surprising. “Could be anything, really.”

“I don’t want to bring Soris into this,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “Not yet, at least. But I’m starting to think I’ll have to. He taught himself to fight watching these men. He’ll know more about them than almost anyone else.”

“That could be… problematic,” Iona says, exhaling. She chews on her lip. “Soris is… fragile, Ser Gilmore. Or maybe it’s lonely, I don’t know. He barely spoke at all, when we went to the alienage. I’m… worried, about him.”

“I’m not entirely sure what to do with him, to be honest.” Gil’s thought about it, of course. Lissy taking the elf to the summer palace will likely be good for him, if only to get him away from the city and somewhere where he can think clearly. “Any suggestions?”

“Getting out of Denerim will be good for him, I think,” she says, tilting her head back and forth as she thinks about it. “And Lady Elissa’s new maid—it’s his cousin, her name is Shianni, she seems capable enough and he trusts her. But I don’t know… I think the only thing that will help is time. His whole world’s fallen out from under him.”

“He’s in good company, then,” he says, then falls silent at her quelling glare. “It’s true. So I should just give him some time? Light duty and palace patrols until he settles in?”

“Oh no,” she shakes her head. “Just the opposite. He needs a distraction. I’d put him on alley duty, but I’d be worried he’d near kill himself.”

“But the City Guard is out of the question?” He can already see some of the problems. Soris is an elf from the alienage. He has history with the guard. Of course the best qualified member of the queensguard would be the one most of the guard will likely try to kill.

Iona grimaces, thinking of the sneering guard faces she’d grown up with. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Damn,” he says. “Training against Soris and Dane would probably be the most effective way to weed out the weaklings. I’ll just have to find the good ones myself.” Though, maybe, he can still take the reports of the most promising guards to Soris to ask about recommendations. Might work, and it might not get either of them killed.

(Whether it will be the guard or Iona doing the killing, he’s not entirely sure.)

“That could still be a possibility,” she says, face creasing deep into thought. “If they were small enough groups, anyway. Dane and Soris would be fine against five, maybe ten, and if we watched, we’d be able to put a stop to more of the virulently racist applicants.”

“Actually,” he says, a bit hesitant because her reaction could be quite bad here, he thinks, “I was thinking of putting the guards against the two of them in two-on-one fights. The guards are going to need to know how to fight multiple opponents at once, and Soris is dangerous enough to count for three on his own. Dane, too.”

It would be best, he knows. It would also be the worst. If noblemen who send their bastards to the guard find out what the new testing is, it could be a riot. People are oddly touchy about making humans fight non-humans to prove their worth.

“You realize that’s a recipe for a lot of dead guards, correct,” Iona says, voice mild.

“Soris would be using a blunted sword, if not a wooden one. The potential guard too,” Gil says. “And Dane would be under strict orders to not kill. I’d be watching the entire time.”

Iona sighs audibly. “If even one nobleman’s son ends up dead, it’s on your head,” she says. “If I have to deal with Lady Elissa on the warpath because some noble’s secret bastard goes home crying, I will kick you, Ser Gilmore, don’t think I won’t.”

“Lissy will just tell the nobles that being a guard is dangerous in this city and if they didn’t want their bastards dead, they shouldn’t have sent them to be guardsmen.” Gil almost laughs at the thought of little Elissa up against an angry nobleman. It would be like watching an angry kitten fight off a bear, he thinks. “And just tell her to come to me directly. Better she yell at me for my own mistakes.”

“She might do that anyway, Ser Gilmore,” Iona chuckles. “She’s not the type to let anyone get away with anything.”

“No, she’s not,” he agrees. “I do think this is the best choice. We weed out the guardsmen who can’t handle the job by finding the ones who can’t face more than one opponent or who can’t control themselves. At the same time, Soris gets real combat experience in a controlled environment.”

“I suppose it’s a good idea as any,” she murmurs. “We’ll have to wait, of course, until their Majesties return from the summer palace.”

“True. In the meantime, I think I’ll need to talk to this Sergeant Kylon. And maybe someone who knows the city and her guards from an outside point of view,” he says, more to himself.

Iona touches his shoulder, smiles when he looks up at her. “I know you’ve got a lot on your shoulders. Thank you, Ser Gilmore, for trying so hard. The city will thank you, I’m sure of it.”

“Only after it tries to crucify me, you mean.”

“That is usually how it goes,” she laughs. Her fingers linger at his shoulder for a moment longer, half-hesitant.

“Oh, I know,” he says. “Never thought I’d be the one doing it.”

“That is also usually how it goes,” she says, pulls her hand away. He’s wrapped up in his work, and she has her own to get to. Chamberlain is probably emptying Lady Elissa’s things into some monstrosity of a trunk—he’s got the look of a man who always overpacks, and if Iona allows him the leeway he’s sure to want, Lady Elissa will go to the summer palace with every single dress she owns and not a single pair of breeches.

She picks up her cloak and her bag. Perhaps she’ll go check on Soris and Shianni first, just in case.

“Good day, Ser Gilmore,” she says, absently. “Please try not to get killed.”

He laughs. “I’ve made it this far. Take care of yourself. I think Chamberlain will be after you for earlier.”

“He’ll have to catch me, first,” Iona tells him airily, and then she’s gone, the door closing with a polite click behind her.

 

—

 

 There is remarkably little on Fade connections of this nature. Neria chews on her lip, books spread out all around her. Magic dances on her fingers as she twirls them around in the air absently, a pen dancing across paper in time with the movements. So strange, all of this. Whatever Solona did is holding, which is good. The Dalish girl will be fine for a while.

But this could be made permanent.

If only she knew what it is.

Kallian—sound asleep, head on a book, see Neria had said books were a vital part of life—said little about the taint. The Warden Duncan had given them miniscule information on it. It’s bad, this taint. Lethal if left unchecked, and only Wardens know how to do that.

Only, Wardens don’t seem to live very long after becoming Wardens.

(She’d gone back to the library for books about three notebooks ago. Well, maybe four. The pen enchanted to write her notes flips a page and this book is almost done. She’ll have to find more, soon.)

Following the chains didn’t work, either. She pouts a little at the thought. It’s always so annoying when things go beyond the in-between, into the dark place she cannot enter. Still need to figure out what that is. There’s something not right with that. No, never been right, must be something—

“Fssskff—Andraste’s ti—where’m I?”

“Please don’t drool on the books,” Neria says, absently, flipping a page in the book. “You might smear the ink and wake up something.”

“Wake up som’thin’? Wha…?” Kally blinks sleep-sticky eyes. “I don’t drool in my sleep? At least, I didn’t the last time I checked?”

“Oh, well, still. Magical books tend to attract things that like to be left alone,” she says. “Pass me the one about the Old Gods, please.”

“Which one?” Kally’s trying not to slur. Maker, it is too early for this, she has not slept even close to enough, and the old man and Lyna—

She sits up, sudden panic in the throat. Lyna. “Where’s Lyna? Is she alright?”

Neria looks at the bed, confirms its occupants, and says, “Still in bed, sound asleep. The shadows haven’t spread.”

“Oh,” Kally breathes out. “Okay.”

She directs her attention to where Lyna’s still asleep. She doesn’t look any worse than she did yesterday; in fact, without the black veins creeping up her neck and shadowing her eyelids, she looks a whole lot better. But her breathing is still high and weird, a little hhh-hhh whistling sound that grates along Kally’s teeth.

“Stupid,” she tells Lyna’s motionless form. “Will you tell us the next time you’re hurting?”

But Lyna doesn’t wake, doesn’t move at all, and that’s probably the only answer Kally is going to get. She exhales again, slower, trying to calm the pounding of her heart.

And someone is staring at her.

Kally and the girl blink at each other.

“Good—morning?” a voice hazards. “Is it morning?”

“You’ve missed breakfast,” Neria says. “But I don’t think anyone’s going to question it. By now most of the tower will know you’re Harrowed.”

No, no one will likely question it. Harrowed mages aren’t usually seen for days. Neria tries to remember the average, but can’t, quite. Her head’s too full of lore and questions. Not that it matters much. She and Solona have always been the odd ones. Anyone who wonders obviously hasn’t been paying attention.

Solona sits up. All of her bones ache. Nerry’s sitting on the table with—Kallian? Kally? Kally, that was it, Kally—Duncan’s recruit. She’s surrounded by books.

“Nerry,” Solona says, “have you slept?”

“Define slept.”

“So you haven’t, then,” Solona sighs. She pushes out of the bed, deftly manages to avoid waking the slumbering Dalish elf in Neria’s bed, and stands up. Her knees are still unsteady. It’s been a long time since she’s poured out that kind of healing magic. “Get off the table, duckling, you need some food.”

“But breakfast will be over,” Neria says, the magic fading from her hands as the pen falls still in a puddle of ink. “Where will we find food?”

“Do you know where the kitchens are?” Kally pipes up.

Neria chews on the inside of her lip. “They don’t like us going in there unsupervised.”

“...What’s your point?” Kally asks. “No one’ll know, and I’m pretty good at locks.”

“The lock’s not the problem.” Neria scratches the back of her head. How to explain this to someone on the outside? “There are always Templars, and the kitchen is staffed by Tranquil. Getting past them isn’t easy.”

“Have you done it before?” Kally asks.

“Maybe.” Neria shrugs. “Solona?”

“You’ve not slept, duckling,” Solona says. “And I’ve not eaten in—Andraste, I don’t even know how long, it feels like a year. And, well, Cullen’s on kitchen duty. I think.”

Neria wrinkles her nose. Cullen. Of course it has to be him, stupid little boy. One would think they’d only let the good-with-people types become Templars but no that would be too difficult, wouldn’t it? “I can hex him if you want. Solitary will be worth it.”

“No hexing,” Solona scolds, “we’ve been over this. He’s just… not my type, is all.”

“He’s still a creep. Little boys shouldn’t play at being Templars.”

Solona sends the most quelling glare she can manage in Neria’s general direction. “He’s—well, he’s fine. And if he’s on kitchen duty, no one will tell. Unless,” she looks at Kally, “you would.”

Kally squints. “Do I look like a snitch?”

“Sonny?” Neria asks, and when the other mage nods, she sighs. “I guess we’re going to the kitchens, then. Is it okay to leave that one here?”

“You’d know better than I would,” Solona murmurs. “She’s running a fever, but it’s a low one. She should be alright on her own, for a little while.”

The shadows still haven’t moved, other than the writhing they always seem to be doing. “She’ll be fine, then. Let’s go, before the Warden comes to look for his recruits.”

“We’re not going anywhere until Lyna’s better,” Kally says, flopping one shoulder up and down. “I heard a couple of Templars talking about it. They all want him to leave.”

“Of course they do.” Neria hops off the table, stretching her arms towards the ceiling as the joints in her back go pop. “They’re afraid he’ll take us away too and we just can’t have that.”

“That’s dumb,” Kally mutters, “you’d think they’d want you to leave.”

“Oh no,” Neria smiles serenely, gliding past the other elf to link arms with Solona. “The Chantry can be so possessive. They guard us the way dwarves guard their gold. So silly, but it’s the way things are.”

“That’s not the way it is at all,” Solona sighs down at the her friend, “and you know it.”

“Are you saying the books are wrong?” she says, eyes wide with wonder. “The dwarves don’t guard their gold like it’s more precious than life itself?”

“They do, Nerry, but it’s not—” Solona reigns herself in. She forgets, sometimes, that Neria hasn’t spent much time talking to the other apprentices, or even the other mages. She forgets that, far as her friend is concerned, there is no outside; there is nothing but the Tower, and the books, and the Templars.

And the magic.

Solona must never forget the magic.

Instead, she shakes her head, sad and fond. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is a little like that.”

“To the kitchens we go,” Neria sings, “are you coming, Kally?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Kally laughs, bites back the snarky retort when she sees the way Solona’s mouth tightens. There’s something here that she’s not able to grab at; maybe it’s their long friendship, but she doesn’t think so. Neria is off, somehow, doesn’t quite belong in the world the way the rest of everyone seems to. She’s both there and not. It’s very strange.

Kally thinks of the previous night, the way Neria had looked far, far away, even when she was sitting right there, and wonders.

Neria spins on her heel, a funny little giggle tucked into the corner of her mouth, and then she’s skipping away. The sound of her humming trails behind her even when she’s turned the corner, and Solona looks and Kally, and bites her lip.

“About Nerry…” she says, very quietly.

“Is she always like that?” Kally asks, a little too awed by the whole situation to say anything else. This is the Circle Tower. She didn’t think they knew how to skip, here; it’s nice to be proven wrong, but still.

“Yes,” Solona says. Her face crumples. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Tell anyone what?”

“About Nerry,” and Solona heaves out a very great sigh. She does that a lot; Solona sighs like there’s a whole universe in her chest and it’s wailing to get out of her, but the only way it can is on these great large exhalations. “She’s… she’s different.”

“Well, I can see that,” Kally says, shakes her head until her hair’s whipping around her face. She was skipping, she doesn’t say. She was skipping and humming and when she looked at me she looked right through me, all the way down to my bones.

“No, it’s not—I mean, she’s not—” and here, the mage visibly struggles for words. “You don’t understand, she’s not like anyone, anyone at all, ever. She doesn’t—the world’s bigger, to Nerry, but if I’m not here, she’d get lost in own head and accidentally fall into the Void, and I—!”

“You?” Kally prompts.

“I’d die without her,” Solona says, so quiet. “I wouldn’t survive. I wouldn’t know how.”

Kally stares at the way Solona’s head dips, dark hair feathering over her slumped shoulders like the ash that falls in Denerim sometimes instead of snow, black as charcoal and infinitely less useful. It’s near the same colour as Lyna’s, and maybe that’s what cools Kally’s head. Lyna had been the same, apparently, about the boy that had disappeared. And though Lyna’s still standing, Kally has to wonder how much of her is left inside.

And really, Kally can’t talk. She thinks of Soris and Shianni, and swallows hard.

“I get it,” Kally tells her, just as softly. The hallways of the Tower are blue-orange-blue-again, shadowed and light in turn, and they’re the same solid stone as the alienage’s walls. Here, too, are walls too high to climb, but at least at home the walls were meant to keep others out.

This place is a prison, and Andraste’s saggy buttocks, Kally has never wanted to escape something so much in her life.

“Do you have someone like that?”

Someone that you cannot live without hangs between them, unsaid.

“I guess,” Kally says. “Yes. No. Sort of?”

Solona smiles at her like she understands, and Kally thinks she might. It’s family, this ache in her chest, Shianni and Soris and Ada and Uncle Valendrian. And maybe the old man and Lyna will be there some day, in that dark sticky place behind her ribs where she keeps her mother’s name. Maybe Neria will be, too. Maybe even Solona, human as she is.

And so Kally offers her an arm. “Should we go make sure your little maniac hasn’t blown anything up?”

“Don’t call her that,” Solona says, and takes the offered arm.

“Are you two coming?” Neria says, a pout already forming on her lips. She’s hanging upside down from a light, skinny legs hooked over the pole connecting it to the wall. White hair swings towards the ground, shimmering all sorts of colors in the light.

“Duckling, get down,” Solona says, voice high and choking on itself, “you’re going to get hurt!”

Neria swings down, lands with barely a sound. “Cullen’s up ahead.”

“One day you’re going to fall on your head, and your skull will crack open like an egg, and then I’ll have to—oh, hello, Ser Cullen.”

Stay calm, he thinks, it’s just—no, don’t go there. Those aren’t good thoughts. Those are bad, very bad, and heat’s already rising up his cheeks. “Solona, hello, ho-how are you?”

Solona takes a shaky breath, tries for a smile. Stay calm, she tells herself, it’s just— “I’m fine,” she says, carefully tucking long dark strands of hair behind her ear. “Just, um, looking to see if we can’t find some food? I slept through breakfast, you see.”

“Breakfast?” Cullen repeats. Oh, right, breakfast. “The Tranquil are preparing lunch right now.”

Neria tucks herself close against Solona. Tranquil. They’re creepy. Very creepy indeed, all calm and emotionless and cut off from everything important. “It’s not just Solona, Ser Cullen. The Warden’s recruits slept through breakfast too.”

“And you haven’t eaten, either,” Solona reminds her, soft. She looks up at Ser Cullen, biting her lip just a little so it goes flush-with-blood red. “Are you sure there’s nothing left? We’ll be very quiet, no one will even notice we’re there.”

His throat’s gone dry. Maker, she’s pretty. He can’t quite think, the world’s gone all narrow until there’s only her and those bright blue eyes. He takes a shaky breath and blinks a few times before everything straightens out a little. Looking side to side, there don’t seem to be any other Templars around.

Of course there aren’t, he reminds himself, you traded a month’s worth of kitchen duty to be at her Harrowing.

“Promise you won’t disturb the Tranquil?” he asks, very quiet. “I can’t protect you if they go to the Knight-Captain.”

“I’ll keep hold of Nerry,” she says, ducking her head shyly and grinning up at him through her lashes. “We’ll be good. Promise.”

“Then go on,” he says, tries to ignore the way it’s far too hot inside his armour. Count the stones on the floor. Yes, that’s a good thing, just step a little to the side so the door is unobstructed and count the stones.

“I appreciate it more than you know, Ser Cullen,” Solona says. She shoves a grumbling Nerry and a smirking Kally past him through the open kitchen door before she very, very carefully presses her fingers to the hollow of his wrist. It’s a thank you, soft and sweet, and hopefully it won’t encourage him too much.

Feelings are so difficult, Solona thinks miserably to herself. I’m sorry, Ser Cullen, I wish I could like you.

“You shouldn’t do things like that,” Neria murmurs. “You might kill him one of these days.”

Yes, well, a lot of things are going to kill him. What’s one more?

Templars aside, the kitchen is teeming with Tranquil moving about. Neria shivers, tries to not think about it. If there’s anything truly awful about living in the Tower, it’s the Tranquil. There’s something inherently wrong about them, like they’re not really alive. They’re invisible. Not even the dwarves are so unconnected from everything like that.

Nothing can survive the Rite of Tranquility. Nothing at all. Even corpses are more here than the Tranquil. She moves as close as she can to Solona, hides in the other mage’s shadows. If they can’t see her, they can’t touch her. If they ignore her, then maybe she can just pretend they aren’t here.

“Should we take anything back for your friend?” she asks. “What kind of foods does she like?”

“She’s not very fond of meat,” Kally says, considering. Or at least, she hasn’t seemed to—when Kally and the old man have torn into cooked rabbit with an almost appalling eagerness, Lyna had gone to collect strange edible leaves with weird textures that, after the first time, Kally had adamantly refused. There had been pulpy roots and starchy tubers, as well, and berries whenever they could get them.

Often, Kally thinks bitterly, they can’t get them. “Fruit, if there is,” she says at last. “And fried potatoes. I don’t know how she’d do with sausage, but she might like hot cakes with syrup.”

“Fruit we can do,” Neria says, peeling herself away from Solona just a little. “They appear on Thursdays.”

“I used to watch them come across the lake,” Solona says, “from Redcliffe, must have been. Now hush, both of you, and I’ll go get some food. Try not to—” she slaps Kally’s hands away from sneaking into the big jars along the wall. “—touch anything.”

Kally grins meanly. “C’mon, Solona, not even a little bit of touching?”

“Not even a little bit,” replies Solona firmly.

The Tower kitchens are a warm set of rooms on the third floor; they heat the whole Tower, truly, warmth seeping from the ovens through the stone floors both up and down. Solona tries very hard to ignore Kally and Nerry muttering at each other under their breath while she goes to talk to one of the Tranquil about finding some leftovers; together they’ll be a horror, she knows, but she has no choice.

“Is there anything left from breakfast?” Solona asks one of the Tranquil girls. Her head is shaved, and she does not smile.

“Yes,” the Tranquil says, simply.

“Where is it?”

“There,” and the girl points to the ice box next to the gargantuan pantry. “Please don’t mess anything up, if you want some. We only cleaned yesterday.”

“Thank you,” Solona murmurs, heart in her throat. The Tranquil terrify Nerry, always have; they only make Solona sad.

“You’re welcome,” the girl says, measured, slow. She turns her attention back to the pot she’d been scrubbing like Solona isn’t even there.

Maker, Solona thinks, have mercy on their souls.

 

—

 

Salt on the wind, water twinning with the scent to the point that if she just closes her eyes, the sound of the waves on the cliffs fills her head and the sea is all she knows. If ever there is a place that can be called heaven on earth, it is the sea. The Amaranthine Ocean is not nearly as lovely as the Waking Sea and never will be, but there is a certain charm to it.

The summer palace is a small, quaint place built right on the edge of the cliffs. When they arrive, the sun is just starting it’s descent into a horizon of endless water. Everything is painted in hues of gold and purple, from the waving grasses and the smattering of wildflowers mixed in all the way to the churning depths of the ocean.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathes, barely there. The waves turn into each other, blue on purple on white surf and the depths shine in green and blue and black below. There’s a lump in her throat. Her heart, maybe, knocked out of place by the intense longing that strikes her.

She hadn’t realized how badly she missed the water.

 Elissa reaches down to scratch Dane just behind the ears, wind twisting her skirts around her legs. “It’s not home, but at least it’s saltwater.”

Cailan watches Elissa watch the horizon.

Something twists, low in his gut. He should have thought of this earlier. Of course, there’d been the wedding, and planning, and other things—but he still should have thought of this sooner. Of course she’d want to be close to the ocean; it’s all she’s ever known.

But Cailan, too, hasn’t forgotten how much he loves this place.

“We can go sailing, in the morning, if you’d like,” he tells her. The wind’s whipped her hair away from her face, and there’s colour in her cheeks in a way he hasn’t seen before. Denerim doesn’t do her justice at all; Elissa ought to have been a mermaid. “There’s a boat down at the dock, though I can’t say anything about its sea-worthiness,” and here he shrugs, a little sheepish. “I’m not much a sailor.”

“Dane can help,” she says. At her feet, the Mabari pants happily. “He’s a Cousland too, after all. Wouldn’t do any good if he didn’t know his way around a boat.” She tosses a smile over her shoulder, hair in her eyes. “And I can teach you, if you want. If it’s just a small fishing boat, it’s not that complicated.”

“I’d like that,” he says. The sun’s turned her all to gold, and for a minute he nearly stumbles over himself, trying to find the words. “I’m warning you now, I’ve been told I’m hopeless.”

“If you can tie a knot and follow instructions, it’ll be fine.” She turns to face him, wind at her back. Sunlight, too. The warmth is a comfort along her spine. It’s a reminder that she is safe; she is somewhere where she is in control. Where there is open water and a boat, she is always in control.

“What if I fall in?” he asks. Far out on the ocean, the squalls cap white. There’s a storm brewing, he thinks, and when it hits it will be amazing. The summer palace is prepared for such things, but Cailan is not.

Maker, he can hardly wait.

“Can’t you swim?” Elissa frowns.

“Oh, I can swim,” he says, and laughs like she’s told a joke, “I just think I’d do poorly getting back in the boat.”

“That’s what rope is for,” she says. Land people—they never make any sense. “If nothing else, Dane can keep an eye on you. If you get too close, he’ll just drag you back. Of course, you’ll likely end up with a bruised arse that way, so perhaps just try to stay away from the edges.”

“Your dog is going to kill me one day,” he tells her, cheerful.

Dane whines low. The Mabari presses against her leg, brown eyes soulful. Elissa thinks he’s the world’s best liar. “He won’t do that. He knows he won’t get any ox bones for the rest of his life if he does that.”

Magic words, those are, and Dane backs off with his nose in the air like he’s too good for her.

Cailan has to work very hard not to laugh. They’re standing so close to the edge of the cliff that the wind comes swooping up from below, the salt of the ocean caught on it startlingly bright. For a moment, there’s nothing but the sound of waves crashing against rock. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his breeches, tilts his head back to look at the sky.

“Thanks,” he says.

“I think I’m the one who should be saying that,” she smiles, looking back out over the ocean. “Unless you’re talking to the Maker, in which case I hope you don’t want a reply.”

Cailan doesn’t really think the Maker exists, though that’s neither here nor there. “No,” he says, “I was talking to you.”

“For what?” She asks, hair everywhere. The pins are useless at this point and she sighs, pulling them loose until dark curls twist together, tangled like the ocean’s waves. “I haven’t done anything.”

He shrugs, unable to look her in the eye, if only because he doesn’t really know what he’s thanking her for. It feels right, but there isn’t really a reason for it.

(But this is Cailan’s life now, so he’s not at all surprised.)

“For getting me back out here,” he says. It’s not even a lie. “I never would have come on my own.”

“This was your idea,” she says, confused. He’s odd. That’s the one certainty she has, after he’s a good man and he’s too innocent. Cailan is very odd, and she wonders whether or not she will ever figure him out. This will be good for him, maybe. Getting him away from Denerim, away from Chamberlain, it might give him some room to breathe freely. That would do him some good, she thinks. “I didn’t even know this place existed until you suggested coming here.”

“I know,” he says. And she’s right, in a way, because he’d wanted to come here for her.

But there’s tension bleeding out of his shoulders with every breath of clean salt air, the sick nausea of Denerim left somewhere far behind, and for the first time in a long time, Cailan feels like he can breathe. There’s no responsibility here, no one watching and waiting for him to trip over himself and ruin everything. He can feel himself unwinding, limbs going loose and uncoordinated, just standing next to her.

“I’ll be better here,” he tells her, “I think.”

“Salt air is good for you,” she replies, laughter hidden in her smile, “so is absolutely everything that isn’t Denerim.” That city is poison incarnate. There’s no space for wind to carry the Amaranthine in, the water that is there is murky with sickness, and no one is happy there. “And sunshine,” she adds, looking at him from head to toe, “just take care not to burn. You’re so pale you might just explode if you’re outside too long.”

“Or if I look at myself in the mirror,” he says, dryly. “A bundle of joy, aren’t I.”

“Only if by joy you mean Chamberlain’s joy at the complete absence of fun,” she says. “And avoid any reflective surfaces, please. I’d hate to have to go back to Highever after less than a fortnight because I was widowed by a mirror.”

“It’d be a funny story to tell at parties,” Cailan says. “My husband looked at himself in a spoon and then died. People would pat your hand in sympathy.”

Elissa begins to respond, but can’t, quite. There’s something in the easy way that he says husband that makes the ground feel shaky like she’s just stepped on shore after being at sea for ages. Sometimes she forgets that this is not new to him. He’s been a husband for some time, just not to her. Staring out at sea, she can see the waves roll with more intensity, the wind picking up with a sharp tang of wild. “There’s to be a storm tonight,” she settles on, choosing to ignore the other things she could say. “Do you think we’ll get to see the Torch before it hits?”

(And the million and one things she probably should say.)

“If we’re lucky,” Cailan says. He offers her his hand, squashing hesitance at the far-away look in her eyes. “We can watch it from the balcony. Walk with me?”

Her hand is tiny in his, so much smaller than she’d ever thought it was. “Of course. We could both do with some fresh air,” she says.

There isn’t much of a path, but as he leads her out, she can just barely make out where one used to be. Railings have been worn smooth from hands passing over them so many times; and some of the flowers here look almost like garden escapees. Someone must have loved this place very dearly, once.

“Dane could use the exercise,” she adds as the Mabari takes off ahead of them, a blur of brown amid the grass. “Have you ever had a Mabari before?”

“No,” he says. He remembers tumbling through puppy piles on long winter days, eventually getting chased out by the shrieking kennel-master. “I used to love going to play in the kennels, though.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, means it too. “It must have been lonely growing up there.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” he says, and he’s almost about to say something about Anora, but he realizes that maybe that’s not such a good idea. “I read a lot.”

“It’s so quiet,” she murmurs. “Highever was never quiet. There was always someone to talk to, always something to do. I can’t imagine growing up without Fergus and Dane.”

She does not mention Gil. It seems wrong, now, to bring that up. The childhood games that gave way to stolen kisses and hidden moments that should have never happened. But they did, and she wouldn’t do it any different if given the chance. It’s just… not the right time.

“I had Chamberlain,” Cailan says, thinking about it. “And my mother, until she died. After that… I had to grow up sometime, I guess.”

She says nothing about his childish innocence and happy-go-lucky attitude. There’s damage there, she’s starting to think. It shows itself sometimes, in little comments about Maric and life after Rowan. It isn’t her place to pry. Maybe someday, but not today. She asks instead, “Did you leave the city much?”

“Not as much as I’d have liked,” he murmurs.

They’ve almost made it to the palace doors. The white-washed stone glows bloody in the sunset, and if it’s not the most unsettling thing Cailan’s ever seen in his life, he doesn’t know what is. Her hand is warm in his, all her bones so small and light, and he thinks that she’s the most breakable person he’s ever known, but also the strongest.

Maker, the clouds are rolling in already.

“We should get settled in,” Elissa says, looking up at the sky. “This is going to be ugly if it’s moving in this fast.”

“Probably,” Cailan says, more to himself than to her. Elissa tilts her face up to look at him, the bloody-red sunset sinking into her hair, and for a moment he hardly recognizes her. The light takes her away from herself, he thinks, and there’s something tragic about it. He catches her chin and bends to kiss her. It’s the only way he knows to bring her back.

She tastes, as always, like coming home.

Elissa answers the kiss, pulling him back when he starts to draw away. The tie in his hair comes loose beneath her fingers, and the gold falls like fire around her. Kissing him is like drinking in sunlight, and inevitably she wants more of it. He’s like morning, almost, happy and a bit of light after the worst darkness.

“Hello there,” Cailan says. His forearms come up to cage her in against him, and they’re pressed back against the wall, though he doesn’t know how they got there. She really is lovely, he thinks, half-dazed, and sinks down to kiss her again.

In the distance, thunder roars. Lightning is sharp on the wind, and she draws back enough to say, “Inside. Now,” because she really doesn’t fancy being outside when a sea squall rolls up. Even if it is with him and the pleasant things that always come from kisses like that.

“Bossy,” Cailan murmurs, smiling against her skin. He hitches her up, hands around her thighs, and lifts her until her legs lock around his waist. “Am I to carry you over the threshold?”

Hooking her ankles together, she grins down at him. “If you can brave Soris and Shianni, then yes, I think so.”

“They’ll survive,” he grins around the words, and kisses her, kisses her again. She’s warm skin under his palms and sweet-smelling hair in his nose, a bright little quirk of laughter at the mouth and the soft fall of skirts. Maker, she’s beautiful.

Cailan carries her inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wren: HONEY I'M HOME it's only been 84 years  
> alma: yo, a wild qeau update appears! not like we're working on chapter 21 or anything

**Author's Note:**

> notes3: as mentioned above, this is a cross posting from ffn. it can be found there under the joint account wren and i share, ruth and the bad kids.


End file.
